Free--even if alone--is the most powerful place you can be

how one line from Wicked unraveled my queer ex-evangelical heart

"And if I'm flying solo, at least I'm flying free."

Witnessing Elphaba leave a repressive, violent, exploitive system so as to not abandon herself and her values had her defying gravity and had me...completely undone.

Elphaba's story beckoned my 25 year old self from the dusty corners of my heart. The one who grew disillusioned by her entire faith community and belief system when she came out as queer. The one who fought administrators and pastoral leadership over twice her age over queer and trans inclusion in the church. The one who created the chosen family and affirming theologies she needed. The one who left her dreams, her community, her job, and everything she knew behind, because she “if that’s love, it comes at much too high a cost.”

I knew I was leaving, solo.
I knew I was leaving, free.
I did not know I was also flying.
I thought I was only falling.

I knew I was free falling into the unknown, with nothing but trust in my own instincts.
I did not know how high I would fly once I leapt and left.
I did not know how leaving would save my life, and prepare me for more disillusionments, more abandonments, and more purposeful clarity.
I did not know I was defying gravity by refusing to abandon myself.

I did not know I was also powerful.
I did not know I was the one to be afraid of.
I did not know I was just getting started.

Sometimes, the only way to respond to dehumanizing systems is to abandon them, to refuse to participate in them altogether, and to become collectively unassimilable. Sometimes, it is our leaving preserves our dignity and renders them illegitimate. But we must do it together, because nobody should have to fly alone.

To read more about my journey, preorder my book UNASSIMILABLE: An Asian Diasporic Manifesto for the Twenty-First Century.