Blink/Grey Matter

Debora Cahn on "Blink"...

Original Airdate: 1-14-10

Here’s where it started. I had my second baby recently. My first is two and a half. And I told Shonda that I remembered quite clearly the moment I became a mother to the new baby. It took a while. Longer than with the first. The first… I was that baby’s mom the instant I knew I was pregnant. But the second… all he was to me was the force of evil that was going to destroy my daughter’s life. She was so sweet and happy and we loved her so much, and he was going to come along and ruin her. She’d lose her status as the epicenter of our universe and it would make her jealous and cranky and aggressive and miserable. My son wasn’t a sweet innocent unborn baby, he was the destroyer. Right up until the day I talked about his circumcision with a doctor.

Someday my son is going to find out that I discussed his circumcision on the internet and he’s gonna be really pissed off.

Anyway, we were planning to get him circumcised, and I was asking our pediatrician about it, and he explained that you could use a numbing cream, but it probably wasn’t necessary. I found this patently absurd. A knife, and a penis, and no anesthesia?? Barbaric. And this from a male doctor? What was he thinking? What the hell did he think I was going to allow them to do to my baby???

That was the moment. Right there. That’s when he became my baby.

He might experience pain, and hell or high water, I was going to stop it. He was my baby.

Now, in the end we didn’t use a numbing cream, which apparently doesn’t really work, or novocaine, because apparently injecting the novocaine is more painful than the actual procedure. I found that hard to believe, but I was assured by three different medical professionals, and sure enough, we did the damn thing and he cried for a grand total of four seconds and that was that. But I did my research, and I did a lot of it, because he was my baby.

One minute he wasn’t, and the next minute he was. In an instant.

It struck me that a lot of stuff’s like that. A lot of big stuff. Big changes. Life changes. You think you’ll grow into it, over time, and in some ways you do, but when it comes right down to it, one minute you’re not, the next, you are. A parent. An adult. In love. Out of it. It kind of turns on a dime.

Malcom Gladwell thought about this too, recently. And wrote a book on it. Called “Blink.” Coincidence?

So there’s Mark, who’s so sure about who he is, just like we’re so sure who he is, until suddenly he’s a dad. Not because Sloan shows up, not because she’s living on his couch, but because she’s in danger, and something kind of unexpected and inexplicable wells up in him and suddenly he’s a father. Just like that. He didn’t want it. He wouldn’t have called it. But there it is. Nothing he can do about it.

And Lexie, who discovers in an instant that she’s kind of still a kid. She sees Mark, ready to take on parenthood, ready to embrace his wacky add-water family, and knows in her gut that she’s not there yet, and doesn’t want to be there.

And let me pause for a second to say that the look that passes over Lexie’s face before she says “I think our relationship just ended” kills me. Chyler rocks.

And Cristina, who has the horrible realization that having a mentor is more important to her than Owen is – she didn’t know that was the case until she’d already said it. Until she’d already offered to trade him away. She had no idea until it was out of her mouth, but once she’d heard herself speak the words, she knew they were true. She’s become a person who will trade away a man she loves for her work. Does she choose that? Is she comfortable with that? It doesn’t matter. She is that.

And let me pause for another second and say Sandra… when she says “Fine! Done! Take him!” Holy crap. I knew it was coming and it still knocked the wind right out of me.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Chandra Wilson claiming that Sheldon Morris has a quality she’s drawn to. Good lord, the woman is funny.

What can I say? It’s a damn love fest over here.

Anyhow, that’s what we were thinking about when we hatched this one. Those little moments that change everything. Change who you are. Not the graduations or births. The offhand comments, at the drugstore, next to the toothpaste. Or on the phone, with the pediatrician, two weeks before the kid comes out. That’s when it happens.

Please don’t tell my son we talked about this.