The Grieving of Elphaba

I will say this, woman to woman, (knowing well you are here and how our curiosity works): My problem is not with you. I am not on a campaign to intervene in anyone's new-found happiness. Asking for obligations to be honored is not asking for a resurrection of what has died.

You are welcome here, step into the light. Isn't it odd we've never been introduced?



And as with Ace, his first wife, your comments and questions, the versions of stories you're told or need to tell, will always have an open forum with me. That is who I choose to be- as a human, not just an ex-tra player in the scene.


And there's a difference that no one but Ace could know... I asked her in the best way I knew how. She was gracious, gave me an honest summary... but didn't divulge details that may have helped me see. Not one part of this, none of the story with me is her fault, I am not casting blame... but I wanted to know - didn't want to encroach- but was too young and inexperienced to see clearly through that summary... I spent a lot of time trying to 'help him forget her with me.' He gladly filled in the details she was too nice to give... he just wanted to be a good dad, have a family and stay married for fifty years... he was sad at her cheating, didn't know what to do - tell their son or allow him to think she was a better person than he knew her to be? She's not who he told me and I must grieve having allowed his version too much credibility.

You haven't asked- and I can not meddle.  Maybe you don't care to know. I fight against that, too. Since this entry is all about raw honesty. To fight one man (or two)  for the security you are due, then align yourself against another woman's same fight... I find that so hard to be true. I think, surely you don't know. Surely,  you've been told I'm a shrew.  I grieve the loss of my voice,  Not getting to be myself, carrying the version you've been told instead.

Why would you want to be my friend, I know.

But I started thinking about this differently when LittleMan started school at 5 years old. Waiting for his class to let out, I chatted with parents and step-parents of every kind. And I realized then- in the way that people do when they grow- that I could be talking to Ace and not know. (My heavy exposure to Seuss this week is showing I know... but I am defenseless against impromptu rhyme most all of the time...not just 'Seuss Week') 


And so. (also channeling my inner DiCamillo)


If before this thing took shape, I found you to be my table mate - at a Fort Gordon show where there's dinner and plays... I'm sure we would be fast friends. And as Ace said to me long, long ago - we would be good friends if it weren't for that husband of yours.



But I mean it differently... she wanted to be as far from the drama as could be... we were alike but our friendship would cost her sanity.

In this way, I mean he gets to say who he wants me to be... a villain in his story. I grieve the picture he has been painting of me.



I don't know what you've heard and I don't need to know either - but I've been dissected alive as my older kids' mother.



You can have no idea, with only one person's truth in a six person tale.

"I hear from three" you say...



Some are under a spell.



Are you the kind of woman who gets a thrill by keeping my belongings? Do you feel more important when my children call you mother? You seem too nice for that to be your position... and yet, you say I'm not welcome to retrieve my possessions? That's what I was told.. but I've oft been lied to.

Or do you partake in his joy of suffering and suppressing me. 

In either direction, I've been found wanting without ever having spoken.



I grieve that the price was so high and my value - our value-  so low.



I grieve learning that patterns are more real than promises.



Truth seldom rolls in gentle, but she will not be denied.



I grieve being foolish, for believing new love could grow in the soils of old revenge.



Chad.



There is grief over being maligned. Over truths that remain suppressed.



Elphaba.



I grieve ongoing deception and the unaware extras in a show being put on for my sake alone.



Who sends their ex-wife pictures of himself kissing his new wife? A man who needs her to see...



I grieve that I cannot speak the truth without disturbing someone else's day at sea.



... something to do with vital honesty.



I grieve.

It is natural and fitting to do so.

For what I have lost, for hard lessons won, for things that will never now be. 

But I do not grieve his finding you, 

only my loss of me.