We’re counting down to the second Wicked movie coming out, and the other night I said to Kelly, very earnestly:

“Wait—there are two Wicked movies??”

She blinked.

“Yes,” she said. “There was a first one. We saw it together.”

And I swear to you: I have zero memory of that film. Nothing. Not a green face, not a song, not a monkey with wings. Meanwhile, Kelly cried through the entire thing.

I was physically present. But I wasn’t there.

I was deep in filtering mode.

We think we’re taking in life as it is. But really, we’re taking in life through whatever filter we’re carrying that day—or that decade.

If you believe you’re unlovable, you’ll miss every single piece of proof to the contrary.
If you believe you don’t matter, your brain will quietly edit out evidence that you do.
If you believe you’re not special, even tenderness will feel like rejection.

Once, a friend called me in distress and said:

“There were a hundred people I could have called, and I chose you.”

What I heard:

“I have hundreds of friends. You’re not special.”

That’s what a filter can do.

So of course I slept through Wicked.
I wasn’t ready to let it in.

I remember The Wizard of Oz so clearly it’s stitched into my childhood.

My mom made hand-sewn ornaments of the Lion, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man—each one longing for something they believed they lacked.
A brain.
A heart.
Courage.

I related to all of them. Still kind of do.

And like so many kids, I rooted for Dorothy and her unlikely crew.
I played “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” like it was my personal anthem.
I wanted everyone to get what they were longing for.

And when the Wicked Witch melted?
I delighted in it.

She was in the way, right?
She was the problem.
She was what needed to disappear before everyone could get what they wanted.

(Take note: filters start early.)

But Wicked tells the story from a completely different angle.

This green-skinned girl—othered from birth—just wants to be seen.
Wants to belong.
Wants, more than anything, to visit the Wizard because maybe he has the answer for how to fix her.

Who can’t relate to that?

She longs to be anything but what she already is.
She works, she strives, she contorts herself for acceptance.

And it turns out…

She was the one with the power all along.

When she finally defies gravity?
I cried—harder than I had in a long time.

I cried at the way Galinda used her, and yet she kept seeing the good.
I cried as she realized her own magic.
I cried as she began to embrace her green.

And some quiet part of me whispered:
How did I ever delight in her destruction?
What else have I misunderstood because I swallowed the story I was handed?

It made me wonder about my own “green”—the parts of me I once wished away, the parts I thought were flaws, the parts I didn’t yet know were power.

I don’t want to preach here.
I don’t want to tie it up neatly or tell you what it should mean.

I’m just noticing that the same story can hit differently depending on who we are when it reaches us—and what we’re willing to let through the filter.

The first time I saw Wicked, I wasn’t ready.
This time, I am.

Kelly and I are dressing up and going to the Wicked party on Friday at Riverside Bookstore. Watching the movie at 4:30, party after.

It feels like a tiny act of rebellion.
A quiet celebration.
A choosing.

This is me, embracing my green.