Unlimited

There is one, fragile moment that cannot leave me. Ever since I saw the Hollywood remake of Wicked, I have felt the pull of a moment I want to invite you into.

Imagine this: chaos, raw and unrelenting. Guards storming in, shouting “Get her!” Their anger is a living thing, thick and suffocating, batons raised like extensions of their rage. And there, caught in the eye of the storm, stands Elphaba. Accused. Cornered. Betrayed by forces beyond her control.

The air is electric, heavy with the weight of everything she’s up against. And then… she sees it. The window. Open. The night beyond it beckoning, offering escape, offering freedom. She grips her broom tightly, ready to launch herself into the sky and leave it all behind.

Here’s the thing about Elphaba: she knows what it’s like to stand alone. To walk through the world without a hand to hold, without a voice that says, “I’m here.” But maybe, just maybe, it doesn’t have to be that way. Not this time. She looks at her friend, Galinda, standing beside her. Elphaba’s voice is steady and full of quiet urgency. She says, “Think of what we could do together. Unlimited. Together we’re unlimited. Together we’ll be the greatest team there’s ever been. . . There’s no fight we cannot win.”

For a moment, Galinda hesitates. You can see it in her eyes, the pull of possibility, the weight of what could be.

But then, she says no. Galinda stays behind, tethered to the familiar, clinging to the people she thinks will give her what she wants. The ones who promise her belonging, even if it’s a brittle kind of belonging. And as she steps away, the ache of that lost opportunity settles deep.

I can’t stop thinking about that moment. Because that has been me. How often have I stayed rooted in the safe and the stale known, even when the extraordinary is right there in front of me. Waiting for me, for us, to say yes? How many more times must we turn our backs on the chance to do something bigger, to step beyond the edges of what we’ve always known?

But what if we didn’t? What if we took the leap and dared to cross the fear that divides us and imagined what we could be . . . together?

We’ve been taught to dream too small. To settle for less. To find comfort in our silos, in the boundaries we draw around ourselves. My team. Your team. My side. Your side. Single-sided stories we have been convinced are the only narrative we get to live. We are suffocating while others invite us, eyes looking in ours beckoning “Come with me.”

The invitation is always there. To hear the song of other’s voices unlike our own. To welcome ideas that awaken us. To open our arms to unrelenting freedom and fullness of life. And why?

Because life is better together. We’re not meant to be threats to one another. We’re meant to be possibilities for each other.

Imagine it. Unlimited. Unlimited dreams. Unlimited creativity. Unlimited care and unlimited joy. Elphaba’s invitation wasn’t just for Galinda. It’s for me and you.
Will we keep saying no, or will we finally say yes?