For Good
Ok, I can't help it. I have way too many damn feelings right now and I've recently developed an inability to cry. I used to be an awesome crier.
I knew that no matter what, For Good was going to hit me hard. I have a huge emotional connection to the song, and every time I listen to it (the original version), I feel like my heart has been tied up in a gigantic knot and someone is tugging at either side. Wicked hit Broadway around my last year of high school, and I discovered it the summer before I started university. And this song hurt me, because I felt like there was no one who could feel that way about me. For a long time, it was the one song I would never listen to, or I would only listen to it when I wanted to feel particularly awful about myself.
I relate to Rachel Berry a whole lot. In high school, I was what I would think of as a quiet Rachel Berry. One of her lines hit particularly close to home: "I want everything too much." I spent most of my teenage years isolating myself so that I could be the very best at everything I did. And being that I went to three different high schools, isolation wasn't hard. When I turned 18, I felt like I hadn't made an impact on anyone or any place. And that was all I wanted, to be remembered. But damn, I really could have used a Kurt Hummel in my life. Someone to call me on my shit, but in the end...be there for me, and to be there with me when I took on the world. So it hurt too much to think about what a difference I wasn't making on anyone's life when I listened to this song.
But that was a bloody long time ago, and things did change. I went to university, and I found out what the song meant. I met people who really did change me, and I feel like I do have people who would be changed if I weren't there anymore. People who might just need me, who might try to keep in touch when I inevitably drift along to my next stop in life. And I am so freaking thankful for them, and because it took me so long to find them and open myself to them, the song means so much more now. I still feel that hurt, because I'm still pretty damn lonely and I still want everything too much, but I also feel that bit of joy and love that goes with it. If you put all that together, you probably get the sense that I also felt a pretty strong connection to Elphaba. So yeah, For Good was going to hit me hard.
Which is why I made myself NOT listen to it ahead of time. The only other song that I have looked forward to like this was Like a Prayer, which I listened to obsessively before the show aired. I was so disappointed, and simply just because Like a Prayer is one of my favourite songs of all time. For Good is so much more, and I've grown pretty attached to the Hummelberry relationship and completely adore both of the actors and their voices. I am so unbelievably glad that I just let it hit me, because it was so wonderful. I haven't felt such a connection with a tv show for a very long time, and definitely not of this magnitude since Buffy went off the air. Chris Colfer and Lea Michele made me feel all of those feelings so much harder, and it all seems a little ridiculous.
This has now gone on far too long without really saying anything, so I'll end with this. Thank you Chris Colfer, Lea Michele, Brad Falchuck, Wicked, and all my wonderful best friends who have changed me for good, and probably for better too.