Vicariously

Life was a funny thing. It was something they all had, it was something they all wanted, and it was something they all experienced. Or at least, they tried to. Perhaps it should've been easy. How was living difficult when all one needed to do was breathe? But in all of her years of life, Elphaba had never known anyone who was able to fully live their life on their own terms. It seemed as if everyone was always "in debt" to someone else. Nobody ever actually owned their own life. Perhaps they could steal bits and pieces of it, but for the most part, life was only lived vicariously.

It was obvious her own parents lived vicariously through her and her sister (but mostly her sister). They transposed all their hopes and dreams onto Nessa. She was the crowning jewel of the family. Even though she was wheelchair bound, in some ways, she had more freedom than Frex and Melena ever did. While they were forced to settle down at a young age just because of their marriage, Nessa still had her whole life ahead of her. So they lived vicariously through her. That was why they were sending her to Shiz, after all.

But it wasn't just the parents that lived vicariously. Nessa, herself, did so as well. Their father was a devout Unionist, and he'd tried to pass on his religion to his daughters. While the older one rejected it entirely, the younger clung to it fiercely. In the past, Elphaba had never understood it. Why was Nessa so attracted to religion? What about it made her so interested? Elphaba, herself, had always found it too fantastical to believe. But then Elphaba had an epiphany. Religion was how Nessa lived, and how she lived vicariously.

As the family had speculated once before, the reason Nessa clung so fervently to religion was because the very core of religion was faith. It was believing in things one could not always see or touch. Of course that would appeal to a girl with no arms. And even more than that, Unionism was full of stories about healing and miracles. Anyone could become someone if they were Unionist. Even armless, wheelchair-bound freaks like Nessa had a shot at being someone great, if only they had religious faith. So Nessa had taken the bait, hook, line and sinker.

Nessa lived vicariously through religion. If her real self was cursed to a broken, mortal form, then the version of her that existed in her dreams, in her religion, would be how she lived vicariously. It would be a version of her with arms, or at the very least, a version that wasn't missing anything without them. Because even though Nessa was well-accustomed to a life without arms, not a day went by that she wasn't painfully aware of her deformity. In fact, she would even talk about phantom limbs and have Nanny massage her shoulders, as if that would be enough to bring her missing arms back. Or she could at least pretend that they were back, living vicariously through hope, prayer and miracle.

And Elphaba, herself, was realizing that she was living vicariously as well. Her crutch wasn't religion, it was material goods. She was no Galinda, of course, but she was a huge hoarder. Even from early childhood, the things that most people would throw away, she kept. They used to think it was just a quirk of hers, but she was starting to realize otherwise. Even though she hadn't been fully aware of it as a child, she had a habit of saving everything because she hated the thought of anything being unfairly discarded.

Elphaba, herself, had nearly suffered such a fate, both her parents and midwives so appalled by her strange birth that they'd wondered if it wouldn't be better just to abandon her. Even though that, obviously, didn't happen, it left a permanent mark on her just the same. Now, her obsession with collection was just a way she lived vicariously, finding the lost things and treasuring them when nobody else would. There was no such thing as junk in her eyes. There were only misunderstood treasures.

And she also lived vicariously through books and characters. While Nessa had her Bible and parables, Elphaba had sagas and heroes. She lived vicariously through the things that she read. She traveled around the world, and even into other dimensions, and all thanks to the wonderful trait of storytelling. And she was able to see herself in some of her favorite characters, growing right alongside them and conquering her demons while they conquered theirs. The family she lacked in real life she made up for through her characters. She lived through them.

Every plot, adventure, twist, turn and happy ending belonged to her. She lived every life she ever read about. Every character had a piece of her inside of it. She lived a thousand lives and won and thousand battles all through the power of literature. That was how she lived vicariously. If nobody in Oz would accept her, the characters of her stories would.

Now Elphaba realized why faith was so important, not just faith in a god, but faith in anything. The ability to believe in that which could not be seen was not always folly. Sometimes, it was the only way people were able to live. Without the ability to trust in the invisible, life was very dull. Nessa had her God, Elphaba had her books. In either case, each girl put her faith in something that wasn't real. Each one put her very life into something that wasn't real. Each girl lived vicariously through her faith, because if there was nothing to believe in, there was no life to be had.

Elphaba was not missing arms like Nessa, but she had also grown up lacking. There was a hole in her heart, but even though something there was missing, she could still have faith in the unseen and unknown, and it was that level of hope and belief that allowed her to truly live. She would reach out for what she did not have, and find it in everything she came across. Just like Nessa reaching for religion to give her hope, Elphaba reached for her collections and stories. Those would fill the gaps. Perhaps Elphaba had more faith than she thought, even if it wasn't religious.

Life was a funny thing. It was something they all had, it was something they all wanted, and it was something they all experienced. Or at least, they tried to. Perhaps it should've been easy. How was living difficult when all one needed to do was breathe? But in all of her years of life, Elphaba had never known anyone who was able to fully live their life on their own terms. It seemed as if everyone was always "in debt" to someone else. Nobody ever actually owned their own life. Perhaps they could steal bits and pieces of it, but for the most part, life was only lived vicariously.

AN: Inspired off the bit in the book where they say Nessa is deeply religious because she's very used to believing in things she can't touch, since, well...