(I am reminding myself of my mother, who was overwhelmed with excitement at a showing of the 1990s teacher movie, Finding Forrester, the screenplay written by a former Kink morning host who had won some sort of contest. The teacher that inspired the story was also in attendance, and my mom equally geeked out over him, pushing me over to introduce myself and fawn over them on her behalf).
But back to Sheila. I started following her on IG several months ago, after hearing she was on a fancy Hawaiian writing retreat, the kind that's on my Bucket List. And hearing about her upcoming book release, All the Things We Never Knew, chronicling her experience with her husband's bipolar disorder and subsequent suicide. (I've been reading a few other famous memoirs about bipolar disorder, including An Unquiet Mind, in anticipation of the release.) She is also now a major player in local advocacy for mental health. When I started following her on IG, she must have started following me in return. Probably to scope out why this totally rando 30-something was interested in her social media life.
Sheila falls into this group of women I admire, those not a generation older, but still experienced and wise. Too young to be my mother, but too old to call my peer. Shelia stands alongside writer Cheryl Strayed, speech pathologist and my former professor McKay Sohlberg, speech pathologist and academic Lyn Turkstra, my neighbor Suzanne, The Today Show's Savannah Guthrie, another neighbor Mrs. Lang, family friend Patti O'Mara. It's like a girl crush on hormones, because there's an element of maternal yearning + wanting to grow up to be that person, too. Let's just call it a maternalgirlcrush, all one word. I can't imagine I'm the only member of the Dead Mom Club to fantasize about being embraced/becoming these smart, talented, kind, cool, inspiring women. And this group of women is different than my straight up momcrushes - actresses Diane Keaton, Susan Sarandon, and Sally Field, family friends Marilyn Jackson and Cindy Worth, among others. Yeah, I don't want to be them so much as have them love me and take care of me and buy me Christmas presents and send me care packages and keep a room at their house for me and, you know, just be like a mom. Creepy, yes.
Suffice it to say I was more than excited when Sheila "liked" my IG video of The Bean and Harlow dancing to the beats of their own drums at Alberta Street Fair. So, you're saying it's totally cool to call her up and invite myself on her beautiful family's beautiful adventures to Greece and the Gorge and out to dinner in fancy dresses with beautiful long blonde hair and on college tours and to backstage Kink concerts, do I have that right?!?
No comments:
Post a Comment