#motherdaugherrelationship — Public Fediverse posts

Every Brilliant Thing

Yeah, the month of August was bookended by Urgent Care and Emergency Room visits, but it wasn’t all bad. Oh yeah, don’t forget the first emergency room visit in the middle of the month related to the Urgent Care visit for the respiratory viral infection but unrelated to the second ER visit for getting hit by an SUV while walking in the crosswalk. But again, August wasn’t all bad.

It was a pretty good reading month, and I saw Spider-Man Brand New Day in a theater with reclining seats.

A week after being diagnosed with the respiratory infection, I was sitting in Hudson Theater on a Girl Date with Gina to see Tracee Ellis Ross star in the one-person Broadway play Every Brilliant Thing written by Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe. I wore a mask and was fighting for my life holding back the coughs that had sent me to urgent care.

Not covid, not the flu, not contagious. I didn’t feel great, but I was there. The flights of stairs to our balcony seats almost took me out. I whipped out my newly prescribed inhaler faster than you could say Tracee Ellis Ross.

When Gina sent the text asking if I were down to see the play before it soon left, I booked us both tickets for the night before it closed. We both went into the play blind, only noting that it had been a while since we’d seen each other and the play was a good reason. We’re both fans of Tracee Ellis Ross and had (re)watched Girlfriends on Netflix.

Though officially a one-woman play listing only Tracee Ellis Ross as the cast, Every Brilliant Thing is an audience-interactive play with no intermission. The square stage is in the center of the venue with some audience members seated onstage. Before “curtain call” (there was no curtain), Tracee, hair pulled into a low bun, dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a t-shirt, stood centerstage greeting people as they filed in. Tracee took hydration breaks from a tumbler at the corner of the stage. There was even a dance break when a disco ball was lowered and spotlighted. The place was gorgeous.

Members of the audience were given slips of paper with a number and a phrase to call out when prompted by Ross. Since I never knew when the phrase would be called, I’m unsure if those members were mic’d or if a production assistant made their way to them with a wireless mic. The call-outs came out high and low. Some audience members were pulled onstage to improv the part of another character in the play. There was even a part when Tracee asked to borrow books to be used as props.

Mannnn, that role was made for me! I’m rarely without a book.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DeTIKH7xxBo/?hl=en

The majority of us were given an insert with the number 10,000. In unison, we recited the phrase “Waking up late with someone you LOVE!” I’ve since lost the slip of paper. I’m grateful I took a photo of it pre-show. Post-show, I bought a souvenir magnet and a journal with Every Brilliant Thing on the blue cover. And of course, I kept my playbill.

The significance of these numbered slips of paper, which weren’t called out in consecutive order, is because Ross plays the unnamed adult child of a mother whose first attempt at suicide happened when she was in grade school. Because of her mother’s perpetual blues, Tracee’s character begins to assemble a gratitude list. Things to live for, have happened, or will happen, including food, colors, experiences. The ever-growing list continues through high school, college, and her own adult relationships, amassing notebooks along the way. The list is as much for her mother as it is for her.

I’m glad I went into seeing the play blind—much like many of the books I read. I’ve been known to purchase and read a book based on cover, title, or author without glancing the summary. Let me be surprised by and enjoy the ride.

In this case, be demolished by it. Had I known the premise of the play, I’m not sure I would’ve agreed to see it. I knew it was a phenomenal play. It was in its third iteration, with Mariska Hargitay and Daniel Radcliffe as previous leads. Who doesn’t love Det. Benson and Harry Potter?

The play was like a punch to the gut. Having lost my mother at the age of 8, I can’t even imagine having grown up with the fear of constantly losing my mother any day because of her constant ideations—and several attempts—at suicide.

What I can imagine and do understand is what the mother is going through specifically because I lost my mother. Everywhere, every day are constant reminders of her absence, my loss. Cartoons, books, movies. Ugh, those damn Disney movies! Seeing my cousins, classmates, and strangers with their mothers, watching my uncles and aunts with theirs, who was my grandmother and lived to 98. She lost her daughter; I lost my mother. Same, but different grief.

There’s no escaping that sadness, that loneliness, that grief. It’s heightened on momentous occasions. Even on the greatest of great days, that dull ache lingers in perpetuity right below the surface. Actually, it sits on the surface. In public, I pretend it’s not, in private I acknowledge it. It’s surprising how many people lack empathy. It’s been decades and I was a child. Surely, I’m ok by now, right?

When an aunt lost her mother, she turned to me and asked, “This is what you’ve been feeling all these years?”

I’m grateful for every time my aunties have stepped up, tried to fill the void of my mother. But there’s always unfilled space.

My first attempt was at 10. There were others in my teens and 20s. The ideations never stop. They can be dormant for a while or persistent, also for a while. They’re not always related to grief—at least not that one. There are other things I grieve.

When I turned 40, I started seeing a therapist. I was diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and PTSD from grief. Finally, a label. I always knew something was wrong, but didn’t know plural things. I also did not and would not allow the diagnoses to be my personality. If it comes up, it comes up.  Thanks to therapy, I worked through the shame and embarrassment of being diagnosed.

I was an audience member for Every Brilliant Thing 18 days before I got struck by a car. It’s my second time having to recover from injuries from a car crash. Twenty years ago, I was in a coma fighting for my life. This time, I walked away from the scene versus being med-flighted that time. This time there was no bloodshed versus needing a blood transfusion that time. This time there were no broken bones versus having so many facial fractures the doctors stopped counting, inserted metal face plates, and wired my jaw shut that time.

This time I remember everything verses not knowing anything because I was a sleeping backseat passenger that time.

This time more so than that time, there is constant, burning, throbbing, zapping, sleepless nights, limited mobility, and debilitating pain.

This time everybody tells me that I’m lucky it’s not as bad as that time. I zone them out when they say I’m blessed. I try not to dwell on the opposite of an every brilliant thing list: all the things I’ve had to forfeit and will continue to forfeit as I recover.

Two days after I got hit, I forfeited my ticket to see KevOnstage in his one-man play Grief Sucks in Philadelphia. I could neither travel nor sit through a play if I could. I’ve missed author book signings, the Brooklyn Book Festival, book club/social meetings, the baby shower for my future godchild, and countless other things.

This is New York City. There’s always something to do. That’s the brilliant thing of living here.