Listen to Your Mother

This is something I wrote for the upcoming show Listen to Your Mother.


The idea sucks all the air out of my body, and I come to in the middle of Trader Joe’s crying in front of butternut squash ravioli. 

My momma, how will I live without my momma.  I feel like I won’t.  Like that is the moment when I will just stop, when I won’t feel like doing or fighting or being what I want anymore.  That I will just curl up into a ball and shatter into a thousand pieces of grief.  That the world around me will no longer have the depth and joy that it did.

My mom thinks this is hilarious.  “Gillian you’re being over-dramatic.  It’s just a part of life.”

“Mom!”

“What”

“Mom.”

“Jill there’s nothing you can do about it.  I’m not sick. I’m just getting older.”

“I hate it!”

“Me too.”

I come home and see grey I didn’t see before.  Movements that feel slower. 

What will I do?  What will I do when she is gone? This woman who can scoop me up in a way no one else can.  Fathers and lovers and brothers and friends can hold me tight, but she can hold me tighter.  This Southern woman with a soothing cadence that says, “What is it honey?” and I know it doesn’t matter what “it” is, but just that she is and I am and that she pats me the way she always does. One two three.  Rub.  And I let go.

Gillian, she isn’t dying.  I know! I’m just…I’m getting older too. 

I want more, and I want her to hold my babies if I have them.  But I feel like time is running away from me and her and all of us.

I'm on the 10 year plan. And by 10 year plan, I mean in 10 years I'm gonna say, “Shit, I forgot to have kids. Time to steal a baby.”

I mean the only way I'm going to intentionally get pregnant is by accident. Whoops! Thought my IUD was my tampon.

I want to be the movie star I know I am, in time for her to see it.  And I want to be as rich as I know I will be, in time to give her things that are so expensive they seem magical.  I want to come into my moment now, so I have the freedom to find more moments with her.  So that I am free to scoop her up when the time comes that she needs me.  So I can hold her tighter.  One two three. Rub. “What is it momma?”

And then I come to in the middle of Trader Joe’s crying in front of butternut squash ravioli.

“I’m fine.  I just feel strongly about winter vegetables.”