Hopscotch…A Jump in Life 24

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Hopscotch…A Jump in Life 24

*Before…

It’s an hour and a half past visiting hours by the time we’re done watching the movies and we’re all yawning and stretching and stuff and we head downstairs to leave or rather they are and I walk them downstairs mostly to get the aches from the bed and sitting for so long out and stuff.

We hug and promise to talk online and stuff later and I watch them get into their cars and stuff.

Danny has his license apparently and he’s driving this old, really old cutlass cruiser station wagon…that’s Oldsmobile I think it’s such a beater but it kind of suits him.

Sigh…What a really, really good night.

*And Now…

One of the security guys is really decent to me and he actually lets me go back using the stairs as long as he came with me and apparently he has to only use the stairs to do that because of people maybe falling in the stairwells or doing like bad stuff and all and he’s not that bad a guy and really not that scary like some of them are…One of the day shift guys looks like he’s always ready to bite someone.

I managed after everyone was gone to do two make-up tutorials on the tablet before taking a shower.

Yes and it was with my panties on.

You can soap through them and it’s right now just a lot easier to deal with stuff like this and everything.

And then it was getting a start at least on the start-up reading for the online school stuff that I got for my grade nine stuff and I read those intros for each of the subjects and stuff and clicked the course agreements and got that far at least by close to just past midnight and when the keys get a little sort of fuguey looking then it’s a good time to stop.

Y’know when the keys aren’t blurry but you just kind of see then and you’re sort of gapping about typing anything and when you do it’s like half typos.

But it was like worth it. It was such a really, really good day and a really great night.

I dream about it.

Just dreaming about like the whole simple pleasure of hanging with them and hanging with friends and just doing stuff like other kids.

I want to go to Archer Lake and go swimming and hang out there in the little side park and listen to music and tan.

I want to do bonfires.

I want to skinny dip without part of me feeling freaky and shameful…but to feel like racey and maybe even like pretty…

Okay that last one…as good a dream as it was and it was really sort of awesome it was not so awesome having to wake up and being me…with my night bra and the inserts and the whole other thing…which hits me with this whole set of dysphoria blahs as I have to get up and use the bathroom again and it’s such like a bad and sharp contrast to thet dream I can’t help but to sit there on the toilet and have a quiet cry to myself.

I look at the clock and it’s morning, it’s morning enough that the food service lady will be around soon and I wash up and then wash my face and wake up some more and then make myself at least look a little presentable.

I know it’s like psychoso-whatever but washing my face helps as does putting on just a little eye makeup and some concealer and some deodorant and a new bra and clothes then getting my inserts in.

It almost makes me want to do a whole new woman joke.

Instead I take out my laptop and go onto my Live Journal and I write, I post up and entry about last night and then another one about later last night and getting a start on my school stuff and how I’m planning on doing this and trying to go back to school with everyone in the fall.

And then there’s the stuff with the dreams…and my dysphoria crappy morning.

Okay it feels better getting it out there.

It feels familiar too…not doing it but getting it out of me and onto the screen and written down…there’s this feeling of release that seems to help after it all and that…that is a familiar feeling.

LJ Sarah might have kept Shawn sane I think.

Okay… okay the morning actually turns itself right around when the food service lady comes in with my breakfast and there’s cream of wheat as per usual with the crappy coffee and the glass of skim but it’s like the heavens open up and I can hear the Angels singing when I can smell food.

Toast…and what smells like sort of bacon.

Okay it’s that turkey bacon stuff but still.

I’m grinning from ear to ear as she’s bringing it over and I quickly go to You Tube and bring up the whole musical bit from Oliver of “Food glorious food!”

I’m grinning as it actually makes her laugh and while she’s a nice lady I don’t think that they get the whole thanks and respect that they should get.

Okay the food’s like iffy but what they were told to serve isn’t likely her fault.

Three day’s…almost four after the coma and everything and the taste of toast with margarine and some Kraft packet raspberry jam is almost enough to bring tears to my eyes.

I like bread.

I mean the stuff like the sundaes were great and so was the stuff that Dad brought too but I honestly right now think that my body was craving something bread like.

I clean everything and even the bad coffee isn’t as bad as it usually feels like since I was so mood lifted from actually having both the toast and jam and the turkey bacon.

And that stuff’s not bad really it’s actually cooked really crispy it’s just not really bacon, it’s not really fatty it’s just…actually it’s sort of like baloney that is sliced really, really thin and it’s pretending to be bacon.

It’s got that same sort of texture as baloney gets when you like fry it.

But Oh yeah as soon as I’m done I’m Live Journaling it and then I’m on my Facebook with it and from there I’m getting back into my Facebook and going through and carrying things over from Shawn’s page to Sarah’s page and I do notice one thing that since my little announcement there’s been a bit of an exodus from my friends list.

Like a lot of people jumped ship.

I don’t remember them, I don’t but it hurts in that weird odd sort of social media way and everything.

I’m likely better off without and stuff but still.

Way to go people… (Sarcasm.)

You all suck. (Not sarcasm.)

I take a good look through and everything and at least there’s no more people talking poop that I can see and that whole thing just sort of spurs me on to get things sort of copied over and posted that I wanted posted and stuff by sharing some of those posts to Sarah from Shawn and then after an hour or so it’s…it’s all done.

Oh…whoo-boy.

I pull the plug on Facebook Shawn.

And I’m wiping away tears from doing that and I’m not really sure…

“Sarah? What’s up why are you crying?”

I look up to see Dr. Johansson there looking at me. “I thought that things were going okay? I mean aside from the whole dream thing this morning and the shower dysphoria.”

(Sniffle.) “I’m okay it’s just I just…I just pulled the plug on Facebook Shawn.”

“Oh…well that’s a big step, you want to talk about it?”

I nod. (Sniffle.) “Yes please.”

“You want to go for a walk?”

(Sniffle.) “Yes please.”

I get up and she waits and we leave my room and we start to walk and at first it’s the same thing just walking and this time we take a different route and we end up down at the kitchen and the cafeteria and she looks at me. “Coffee?”

“Yes please.”

I’m sort of looking at some of the stuff there and it’s not really tempting me right now but the coffee isn’t decaf. It’s whatever perk they use and that’s fine with me and I put a little cream in and milk but no sugar. I just can’t do sweet coffee or tea that much. I’ll drink it but if it’s my choice then just milk and a little cream.

We start walking but she takes me outside and we’re on the patio which is attached to the cafeteria and it’s just red bricks and a red brick three foot wall and picnic tables and it’s sort of got cover from a bunch of birch trees planted all around it and I sort of smile a little.

It’s nice out and the leaves are just sort of starting to come out and unfurl from their buds. It’s something that I like seeing and it we leave down this little walk that connects to a sidewalk that leads around the building.

She starts after we get more or less on our own. “So like I said it’s a big thing that you did.”

“It feels good but at the same time it’s kind of hard. I don’t get why though, I mean I don’t remember Shawn…being Shawn or any of those things.”

“But even if you can’t remember it doesn’t mean that it’s still not there in part and reading the things that was there well it just likely made some sort of a connection.”

“Yeah, I guess…maybe I feel guilty some too.”

“Guilty?”

“Like for this and stuff with my folks…like I was killing what was left of their memories of Shawn…they could’ve gone back and they could’ve like looked ta that stuff and…”

“And just really made things worse Sarah. Shawn’s not really gone because with everything that I’ve seen and that I’ve read in things with your Journal and the threads and how you interacted with the people you know and that you knew…and then seeing Shawn’s Facebook page it’s actually pretty clear.”

“It is?”

She looks at me. “Yes, and really with my wholehearted professional opinion you’ve been at least in part living as Sarah for years now and Sarah had…has a voice that is uniquely you.”

“Me and not her?”

She actually turns and she walks backwards sipping her coffee. “See I was thinking and wondering that and I’ve been following your posts and the things you wrote of Shawn’s Facebook and y’know what’s really telling to me?”

I shrug and I take a long drink of my coffee. “Not a clue really you’re the doctor remember.”

“You write the same.”

“Okay well I haven’t lost that much I still know how to type and use a computer.”

“No Sarah, you still write the same as you did. You have the same voice.”

“How can you tell?”

“You read like her. You have the same quirks and the same method and phraseology.”

“Phraseolowhats?”

“You say the same things as you did back then with your writing and the way that you chose your words and express yourself.”

“Oh…well couldn’t I have picked it up from reading my Live Journal?”

“Maybe but with your aphasia it’s really not likely.”

“So you believe me?”

“Yes and enough for a diagnosis I think at least for you being transgender, I still seriously think that you have lots still to deal with in the whole amnesia and PTDS from your accident however.”

“Okay so what does that mean?”

“It means as soon as we can on Monday we get you seen to by an endocrinologist and get things started.”

“Really?”

“Yes really.”

“Awesome.”

“Yes I can imagine that it is but we still have a lot of things to cover like I said and there’s still the things that I want to work on with you and your parents.”

“Oh…so I’m not even close to being done huh?”

“Nope.”

“Well it’s a start…so…?”

“So?”

“When do you think I’ll be able to actually go home?”

“That you’ll have to clear with the specialists and things I can put in an ask with then for Monday though.”

“Thanks, it’s not that I’m not grateful but right now I’m getting back on real food and other than physio stuff I’m just well kind of not doing much but taking up a bed.”

“Which might actually get them moving things along but you’re not supposed to be doing anything you know.”

(Sigh.) “I know and I have stuff to do now with getting some online make-up classes.”

“You do know there’s more to being a girl than clothes and make-up right?”

I give her the side-eye. “I meant making things up for the ninth grade.”

“Oh well that’s different.”

I screw my face up. “You read my posts; you knew I was doing this so that wasn’t like funny.”

She smiles. “Well it was a little funny.”

I stick my tongue out at her.

She grins and we actually talk a little bit more about stuff that we did last night and the hanging out and having fun and the way that it felt all kind of new…like it wasn’t a thing that I had before which says I guess a lot about how Shawn was with the guys that I…he…was with.

And that brings some more tears as it sort of hits that I might have been a fake friend to them or something.

We’re back to my room by then and she sits me on the bed and she lets me have a cry.

“You don’t seem like the sort of girl that’d be a fake friend even in stealth mode. This is why we still need to work Sarah…it’s still there, it surfaced in medical Imaging at least partway in a flashback.”

(Sniffle.) “This sucks.”

“Yeah, it does but you’re going to get through it.”

(Sniffle.) “I am?”

She points past my shoulder and Dad’s there in his jeans and his jacket and he’s giving me this look, it’s that kind of sort of look that you’d honestly only get if you were someone’s kid.

Yep more tears.

He comes over and he slides onto the bed and he puts his arm around my shoulder and he pulls me close and I sort of turn so I can hug him and hold onto him and start to cry.

“I love you Sarah, honestly and truly kiddo…and I will get you through this.”

His arms tighten and it’s suddenly me safe with my Dad.

Yep…sooo crying right now.

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Comments

"Yep…sooo crying right now."

oh yeah ... me too ...

definite tissue alert with this chapter ...

DogSig.png

What did you expect?

D. Eden's picture

It's Bailey. If you're anything like me, you rarely make it through a chapter without shedding at least a few tears.

D. Eden

Dum Vivimus, Vivamus

How do you keep doing this???

D. Eden's picture

Somehow, you manage to continue to find ways to pull on my heart strings. And yeah, I had to stop crying to write this.

I'm not so far away from pulling the plug on the old Dallas myself, but he will always be there. He protected me for five decades and in a way, we are one and the same. Yes, he was never real - but underneath the facade the real me was always lurking. And in a way, we are just switching positions.

Thank you for watching over me D - I wouldn't still be here if it weren't for you.

Dallas

D. Eden

Dum Vivimus, Vivamus

Loved it

Another great chapter girl like everyone else it had me crying to..........I started reading some of your other stories as well and u are such a wonderful author and u deserve a lot more praise then u get but us fans do try to encourage you to your greatest potential…lots of hugs ur fan bookworm

For every book there is a worm eating up the knowledge

Yep…sooo crying right now.

And me also. Great story please don't stop , take it to the end.

devonmalc

Thanks

Another amazing chapter.
This story is really refreashing.

he jumps in...

an scores major dad points.
good chapter, thanks