Confession: we need to talk about Tully
I found what I thought I had lost forever
Me and my family at Uncle Gordon’s farm in beautiful Chehalis, Washington.
Last week I was in Washington on my annual family vacation with my husband’s parents, sister, nieces and nephews. It was wonderful. Highlights included exploring the town of Leavenworth, a Bavarian-inspired town that made me feel like I was in a snow globe, minus the snow. We floated a river, ate oversized pretzels, and chased after five kids in a massive Airbnb. Next we went to a family wedding in Chehalis where golden hour made the fields look like a dreamscape. It was as all vacations should be — a restorative break from reality. I loved every minute of it. What I didn’t expect though, was what happened on the plane ride home.
After a two-hour car ride to the airport, four hours of waiting in the airport, and one hour of waiting on the airplane, we were finally on our way home. Teddy was nestled in the seat next to me eating his snacks and watching the iPad, and I decided that instead of reading a book like I did on the way to Washington, I would indulge and watch a movie. I scrolled through the Alaska Airlines film library and landed on Tully, a 2018 film by Ivan Reitman and Diablo Cody that features Charlize Theron as Marlo, a mom-of-three navigating life just after her third is born. I had watched it before, and I knew the plot, but I felt pulled to watch it again. I’m so glad I did.
I’m going to warn you now: this is going to contain a lot of spoilers. Basically ALL the spoilers. So stop reading if that matters to you. I already knew what was going to happen and it was just as impactful for me to watch it a second time. Maybe even more so.
Left: the movie poster for Tully in 2018. Right: me in 2014, covered in stickers on the airplane right to Hawaii with Stella and Violet (then almost two). It was the only way to keep them calm on the flight.
Tully came out the same year my third child was born. And although I don’t remember exactly when I watched it, I am sure it was while I was still stuck in the haze of my survival. Now that my youngest is five, and I’ve been a parent now for over a decade, my eyes are starting to open up to the toll this chapter of my life has taken. Watching Tully again on the plane didn’t just open my eyes though. It broke open my heart.
The movie opens with Marlo in the final days of her pregnancy (which we learn was unplanned). She is finally on maternity leave and is due to give birth any day. Nonetheless she’s managing the house and her two older kids like a champ, one of whom has special needs and is experiencing challenges at school. At a family dinner, Marlo’s wealthy brother offers to pay for a night nurse and gives Marlo her phone number. Marlo shrugs it off. She’s got this. Mini spoiler alert: she hasn’t got this. The film makes it very clear she is having a very hard time already.
When the baby comes, the reality of three kids (and a partner who isn’t involved in parenting) hits Marlo hard. Despite her initial reservations, Marlo calls the night nurse. This is when we meet Tully. A buoyant, beautiful girl of twenty six. She swoops in each night and allows Marlo to rest and recover while she watches baby Mia. For a few weeks, it feels like things might be okay after all. The house is tidier, the kids are happy and cared for, Marlo even manages to reconnect with her husband. Marlo and Tully become friends, talking each other through their respective challenges and eventually have a night out together in Marlo’s old, pre-married and kids, neighborhood. It’s there that Tully tells Marlo that she can’t work for her anymore, and Tully gets so upset she drives him drunk and drives off a bridge into a lake (she survives, don’t worry).
We next see Marlo in a hospital bed, with no Tully in sight. She miraculously survived, and her husband is there, worried out of his mind. How could this happen, he wondered. She was doing so well! Friends. She was not doing so well.
Here is the major twist spoiler, so again, please stop reading if you want to watch this yourself.
Tully watching Marlo and Mia.
There was no night nurse. There was no Tully. Tully was Marlo’s maiden name. Tully was Marlo at twenty six. She was a figment of Marlo’s imagination, one that she constructed in order to survive. We see Tully one final time in the hospital room and they have a short but loving conversation about keeping each other alive. This is when I started sobbing.
I remind you, I knew about this twist because I had seen the movie before. Nonetheless, when it hit, the wind left my lungs and instead of air my body was flooded with memories of my own self at twenty six, the girl I left behind when I became a mother. I simultaneously felt the intense trauma that I endured while caring for premature twins, born six weeks early and each only four pounds. At twenty six I was a freshly minted lawyer, with an epic wardrobe, bright eyes, a travel budget and busy nightlife. At thirty I was changing my shirt six times a day because my girls would throw up on me every single time I breastfed. Nothing prepared me for this transition. Was I alone like Tully was? No way. I had and have a supportive partner, family, friends, resources… but nonetheless. The emotional transition, that I had to experience all on my own.
E is for Emotional Empowerment. The ABCs of Self Love.
In my work as a self love poet and author, I write a lot about feeling your feelings. It’s a concept I believe in deeply, and a practice I truly honor in my daily life now. But I’m 41. Watching Tully, I realized that the emotions of my thirties, the ones born of having twins followed by a third child (unplanned, but welcome), marriage ups and downs, multiple career transitions, health scares and far too many hospital visits, they are all still there — just waiting for me to feel them.
I’ve written here before about how I fear my memory is failing. There’s so much about the last ten years I don’t remember. Watching Tully I realized the memories aren’t lost: they’ve been suppressed as a survival tactic until I’m ready to feel and process all the feelings that came with these life-changing experiences. This is the magic of art: the right poem, the right film, the right painting… each can bring us back to life.
The Tully script, page 88.
I’ve thought a lot about why it was the scene with Marlo and Tully in the hospital room that hit me the hardest. It wasn’t just that Marlo hallucinated having help. It’s that the person she hallucinated was her younger self. And there I go again — welling up with tears as I type this.
What if my younger self, Melody at twenty six, is the key to me processing this decade of motherhood and healing myself? What if she, the most vibrant confident and free version of me, is the key to me bringing that energy into my forties and beyond?
What if each of us invited our younger selves to accompany us throughout our lives and help us stay a little lighter despite the ever-growing weight of our lives?
Melody at twenty six, 2008.
I used to think that version of me was gone forever. That the realities of my life wouldn’t allow space for her. But now I realize that she is how I’m going to become more expansive, more abundant, more free. Melly is my Tully. She will keep me alive, if I keep her alive.
U is for Union, from The ABCs of Self Love.
P.S. There are many, many more layers to this movie. I hope you’ll watch it and write me so we can talk about it.