Growing Up

If you don’t like the musical Wicked then you either a.) have not seen it; b.) have no feelings and also don’t like things like baskets of kittens, grandparent hugs and Disney World; or c.) were suffering from severe personal trauma when you saw Wicked and were not fit to properly form opinions. If it is either A or C then I suggest you research the most efficient way for you to see Wicked as soon as possible, the most obvious answer being a road trip to NYC. Since I have provided you with this advice, it would be extremely rude if you did not bring me along. Just saying…


On our way home from the Smokey Mountains last week we were listening to my IPod on shuffle. I always want other people to listen to my IPod on shuffle because obviously I have compiled a masterpiece of musical variety encompassing all of the best songs that were ever written and performed. Your IPod is probably pitiful in comparison, but I am not taking into account that people can have different taste in music than I do. I always forget that….weird.

Anyway, we were listening to “Thank Goodness” which is a song from Wicked which has consistently been one of my favorites (Duh, that’s why it is included in the brilliant list of audio ecstasy that is my IPod.) During the scene Glinda is shifting into position as the Good Witch and in the process is maturing past the flippant girl she was before. Also in the background of the scene you have the hatred brewing for the Wicked Witch and all the misconceptions that accompany that hatred. Glinda is being pulled between what she knows as truth, her loyalty to her friend Elphaba, her dreams and goals and also the perfect appearance she wants to portray. Those are a lot of things to balance, and during this time she is realizing that growing up and reaching her goals doesn’t happen on a smooth path like the beautiful Yellow Brick Road. There are many difficult decisions to make along the way and choices that leave consequences we sometimes don’t realize until they have occurred:

'Cause getting your dreams
It's strange, but it seems
A little - well - complicated
There's a kind of a sort of, cost
There's a couple of things get, lost
There are bridges you cross
You didn't know you crossed
Until you've crossed’

Glinda is uneasy to learn that you can’t just make things pretty and sweet and expect that will get you by your entire life. True leadership isn’t just getting people to like you; it requires tough choices and Emerald City sized responsibility.

This is the essence of what “Coming Of Age” is all about. In fact actual age has nothing to do with it. It is about that period in life when choices become painful, our path is made bumpy and our critical decisions are no longer “Go out for the night or stay in?” And after it starts we spend the rest of our lives growing up and wondering each and every day whether we are good enough and making the right choices. I am glad that when I was young people simply said to me “enjoy being young these are the best years of your life” rather than what they were thinking – “enjoy being young because when you get older mean people will expect you to make an endless array of decisions with colossal consequences that could literally ruin your life, or at the very least ruin your day….oh also dark spots and wrinkles, you will have lots of those….”

I guess for me that has been one of the hardest realizations to come to. Not the wrinkles but that it never ends. I will never be done “Growing Up” as I actually looked forward to when playing on the swingset. That must be why it seems so wrong in Peter Pan when Father decides that Wendy will be moving from the Nursery to Grow Up in one evening. It can't happen over night.  Sometimes I feel grown up, sometimes I feel like a child, and sometimes I feel that although I do have a lot more growing up to do, things do work out eventually for me just as they will for Glinda.