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.”
2 Comments
Libby Bellinger
3/29/2011 07:00:22 am
I'm Gillian's mother. I am calm and quiet and seldom worry about the future. So, in those things Gillian and I are very different. Our humor, however, is similar; mine is less bawdy.
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Alaina
3/29/2011 02:17:04 pm
I LOVE the Bellingers!! This made me giggle and tear up a bit too. It's all so true...but especially the love. :o)
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AuthorGillian Bellinger is an LA based comic rockin' it in the free world. Archives
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