Wicked

I’m grateful for an early run where the streets were super quiet and I was able to focus on recording higher than usual elevation gains. I’m grateful for my mobility on a daily basis. I’m grateful for a reading about instincts and how they’ve changed since my addiction ended, how old ones still rear their head, and how I can practice better ones moving forward. I’m grateful for new, welcome additions to our gallery wall and lighting fixtures that provide much needed brightness to certain rooms. I’m grateful for how much joy it brings me to keep iterating on our home, it feels like a cool puzzle I can keep tinkering with to optimize aesthetics and utility. I’m grateful for new passions that are discovered in sobriety. I’m grateful for understanding how quickly my state of mind can shift as that realization keeps me seeking equilibrium rather than dwelling in the extremes. I’m grateful for the extra exercise I get playing catch with Harper.

I hopped on the pop culture bandwagon this weekend and watched Wicked. It was a fun ride! Ever since the pandemic I no longer go to the movie theater much. Steeper ticket prices plus not wanting to leave Harper home alone for long periods means when I do go it has to be for something special. Wicked, in this case, was something special. Not only does it feature one of my favorite pop stars in Ariana Grande, it is also the first Broadway musical I ever saw – as an adult. I have a vague recollection of going to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat on a middle school trip, but I’m not going to count that seriously because it’s such a blip in my memory.

Back to the point though – Wicked – it was amazing. There are several deep, dark themes in the story (perhaps too many, but I’m not writing a critical review here). One of the themes I wanted to touch upon is empathy. Without delving into spoilers, a big character shift occurs when the two competing protagonists come to find each other’s humanity, each other’s vulnerability, following a pivotal event at a dance hall. For someone who feels like they are decent at keeping it buttoned up, I was shedding some silent tears in that theater.

There are a myriad of reasons why I was moved during the film, but a primary one is because it reminded me of a time in my life that has long since passed. I saw the Broadway musical back in 2006 as a college senior with one of my best friends who I’ve lost since due to my alcoholism. Till that point I hadn’t even had my first drink. I had remained pretty strait-laced (no pun intended). I had hidden myself from a lot of the world because I was hiding my sexuality. That would change soon once I graduated, began drinking, and moved to San Francisco.

There is a lot of advice I would give to my younger self now as I hit 40 in a couple of months. I would say to not be afraid of embracing my authenticity. To not constantly mold myself to what others think the best version of me is. To not let fear and anxiety overwhelm every short and long term decision I make. Honestly my mid-20s to mid-30s is quite the blur, but a constant I can recollect is that I didn’t like myself. Drinking only exacerbated the feeling, especially as shameful acts started piling up. As they say in the rooms to build self-esteem I need to do esteemable acts. Those were few and far between for the better part of a decade.

But back to empathy. It has taken a very long time to come to a place where I have gained empathy for my past self. Vodka made it easy to be categorized as irredeemable. When I finally put the bottle down, shame decided to settle in for a while. However I slowly learnt to let other thoughts enter. As I infused my mind with the constructive, caring language brought upon by being in AA, I learnt about the work I needed to do to repair my relationship with me. I had to clearly look at my past to comprehend what I was thinking and why. I had to uncover the root causes for my insecurities and maladjusted actions.

That is where self-empathy stepped in as a crucial savior. I had to find ways of dropping the shame and be kind to me in the way I would to another person who’d gone through hardships. I had to create a gentle, safe space when it came to reliving painful experiences in efforts to discover ways to move past them and be stronger. After watching Wicked I was once again transported to a mindset where I had to practice self-empathy. Thinking about who I was in 2006 there were so many missteps I had yet to make, but I was a ticking time bomb. I hadn’t procured the right tools around living an informed, sustainable life. I was at the whims of this world’s harsh realities. In many ways I needed to experience the pain and be pushed to uncomfortable limits. Luckily through the grace of some Higher Power machinations, I managed to not only survive the tumultuous journey, but also find a place in AA that shows me how to reflect on it productively. Now when I’m reminded of old transgressions, or even older versions of me, I have the ability to demonstrate empathy for myself first. In doing that I am gifted the opportunity to perform a self-appraisal that permits me to learn and not linger in regret. Seeing Wicked again was an unforeseen, but welcome exercise in reminding me that while I can never change the past, I can find ways of embracing it and thereby embracing me even tighter.

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