Come back soon…Part one
“So why’d you try and die Mike?”
It’s the first thing that I hear waking up not surrounded by the doctors.
I open my eyes and it’s a struggle with the sedation I’m still under and whatever else they have me on. I feel so weak inside and out.
Teddy…
He’s my baby brother and he’s seven and I look around to see my parents and my girlfriend Marlene outside talking and they look upset.
Well I did chase a whole bottle of ibuprofen with a bottle of cooking sherry.
I look back at Teddy and he’s looking at me and he’s sitting on my bed cross legged and he’s eating a bag of those chocolate coins and a strawberry milk.
What do I say?
What do you tell a seven year old about trying to end it because you can’t live like this anymore?
“I…I was sad…so sad it hurt buddy.”
He pursed his lips and looked really serious and in deep thought. He looks at me. “I still don’t get it, why are you sad that bad…I’ve never been that sad before.”
“Because bud there’s something really wrong with me.”
“Because they found you in girls clothes?”
I sigh.
“Yeah bud, I wasn’t meant to be a boy.”
“But you’re a boy?”
“Not inside, I never was.”
He unwraps a gold foiled chocolate and he moves further up the bed and he feeds it to me. “Here girls like chocolate.”
He just says it so matter of factly it starts to make me cry.
And I’m crying on my little brother hanging onto the little guy like he’s a life preserver.
He pats my head and I just know he’s getting melted chocolate in my hair and it doesn’t matter.
I go through a serious crying jag.
I feel so bad inside he’s my family and he’s my baby brother so how could I even have thought about putting him through this much less mom or dad…or Marlene.
I feel so bad because I’m crying into his stomach for what feels like the longest time.
It feels like the feelings, the hurt going on right now is twisting into a ball in my stomach right now I cry until it hurts literally.
Pills…they might not have killed me but they and whatever they did to save me isn’t being gentle with me right now.
I’m gasping and sniffling still sort of in Teddy’s lap.
“Mike?”
(Sniffle.) “Yeah….”
“Can the doctor make you a girl?”
(Sniffle.) “…kinda, it’s complicated…”
“But you’d be like a girl if they did right?”
(Sniffle.) “Yeah…”
Teddy reaches down and he lifts my head up high enough to look at me. “You know you can’t be a girl if you’re dead right?”
(Sniffle-sob…..) “…………………….”
He kisses my forehead. “Dummy, you’d make a good sister.”
(Sob…!)
I’m crying so hard again it’s hard to see and he hugs me until I’m done crying or this burst of tears…just being out…people knowing open floodgates I never knew I’d sealed up.
He crawls off my bed. “I’m gonna let mum know you’re awake.”
(Sniffle.) “Okay…”
He grins and eats another gold coin chocolate looking at me.
(Sniffle.) “You’re a smart kid y’know that right?” (Sniffle.)
“Oh course I am, I’m named after Teddy Bears and we protect you when you are scared and hurt sis…” He eats another chocolate coin. “I’m just doing my job.” He heads out into the hall and I’m.
Sis…
He called me… Sis.
Is it really that simple?
Maybe? Maybe something kind of feels right inside right now.
Come back soon…Part two
I’m sitting up a little more and trying to clean my face and get the snuffles from crying out when my mom comes in.
I hurt looking at her. Well sorta looking at her if my head wasn’t hanging down so low.
She looks tired, like scared, hurt, worried and stressed out with no sleep tired.
My heart does a little hurting mewl because she doesn’t deserve that, not after everything she’s been through.
See, mom’s a breast cancer survivor.
I feel like real shit for doing this now. I mean it’s not like I can take it back either though.
She comes in and she takes my hand and she rubs her hand over mine and she is just looking there first for a few minutes before looking at me.
“Why Mike?”
“That’s why mom.”
“I don’t understand, what’s why?”
“Mike…my name it’s not who I am?’
“Michael.”
(Sniffle-sob.) “No mom never, not really?”
“So you think you’re a girl?”
“I don’t think mom…I know, I’ve always known.” (Sniffle-sob.)
She takes some tissues and she wipes at my eyes and I let her but almost turn my head away. This, this conversation and he not getting it hurts…it always has but now it’s right here out in the open and it hurts somehow all the more for that.
“Honey, don’t be like that I’m trying to understand…we all are.”
(Sniffle.) “Really?”
“Yes really, it’s just this has kind of caught all of us flatfooted.”
“I guess.” (Sniffle.)
“Guess, well it’s kind of a shock when I get a call telling me that my second oldest tried to overdose and was found in women’s clothes.”
(Sniffle —sob.) “Sorry….” It comes out as a whine.
“You should be you doing this, it hurt us young lady.”
(Sniffle-gulp.) “…………..Wha…”
“What? You’re one of those Trans people that’s in the news and stuff…I’m your mother I’m not sitting at home knitting all the time I have the internet too.”
(Sniffle.) “Sorry it’s just…”
“I’m not sure that I get it but since you’ve been here and out for so long we’ve had a good number of doctors and a couple of shrinks stop by and check in on you and us and we’ve had some interesting talks too.”
(Sniffle.) “Really?”
“Yes really…Look. I’m willing to try but you have to meet us halfways with this and actually talk to us.”
(Sniffle —sob.) I look down again. “I couldn’t…”
“Heavens why not haven’t your father and I said that you kids could tell us anything?”
(Sob!) “Yes! I’m Sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry….” I start to bawl again and she schooches over to the bed and she holds me. “I’m so sorry mommy.”
“Why did you never tell us honey we could have done so much so sooner!”
“I was scared!” (Sob.) I bury my face into her stomach and she rocks me.
“Why, what did we do to make you so afraid of us?”
(Sob.) “Nothing!...You don’t have to do anything I was just scared…”
How do you explain how it feels? How you think it’s wrong yourself, how you doubt everything and how badly it still hurts when you finally get why you’re hurting? Hi1 I’m your child that you’ve loved and cared for in a certain way all of my life only I’m not really that person that you love so much I’m someone else.
And having a dad…and all brothers…
“Well you don’t have to be scared anymore honey.”
“Mom?” (Sniffle.)
“I mean there’s a lot we have to do and go through together and you’re kind of signed in here for a good while for like evaluation but we will get through this and we will fix this.”
My mouth just went dry. “Fix?”
“No not that way Michelle, but like therapy and talking to the gender shrink they have here and that kind of fixed stuff. (Mom-sniffles) that and the dress.”
(Sniffle.) “The dress?”
“Yes, good lord honey that thing looked awful on you. You looked like your great Aunt Bess.”
(Sniffle-smile.) “I…I bought what I could in secret…I didn’t have…sorry.”
“Well we’ll have to go shopping when you’re out and after what the doctor says.”
(Sniffle.) “Okay…and mom?”
“Yes honey?”
“It’s not Michelle I know everyone thinks that’s what I want…what I feel my name is but it’s not.”
Mom leans back and she looks at me. “It isn’t?”
(Sniffle.) “No… (Sniffle.)…I always wanted to be a Jennifer… (Sniffle.)…Just like my mom…!” (Sniffle-sob.)
Mom looks at me and her eyes went wide and they shimmer and they fill and they spill over with tears and she hugs me tight and she sobs out. “Oh baby…Oh Jenny really!?”
(Sniffle-sob!) “Yy..yes, I’ve always wanted to be like you!”
We both start crying and crying and I don’t know where the tears are coming from but it’s like I have had them stored inside of myself for so long that…maybe that’s what I was drowning in inside…all my held back and unshed tears.
And just when I think I haven’t dumped enough water out of my system I wipe my eyes. “I need to pee.”
Mom smiles and she rubs at her own face. “Here let me help, you’re still on a drip.”
I’m really shaky and I’m not sure if it’s recovery or nerves but mom helps me to the bathroom and she stays just outside the door. I go to…
It’s a mom sense thing…has to be. “Honey?”
(Snuffle.) “Yeah Mom?”
“Go ahead, sit down….”
I have fresh tears and I’m biting my lip that she somehow got it.
I sit and…that’s when I notice that I’m actually wearing panties. They’re plain and they’re cotton and they’re still kind of pretty.
“Mom…?”
“Honey, I’m your mom of course I went and got you the right underwear.”
(Snuffle.) “Thanks mom…just thanks so much…”
“Jenny…I might not get all of it and I’m going to really try and learn but bringing my daughter fresh underpants when she’s in the hospital’s a no brainer.”
I pee…wipe…flush and wash and come out opening the door and look at her. “No mom, it’s a huge deal.”
I hug her tight. “Thank you so…much.”
“You’re welcome baby.” She smiles and helps me back to bed and while I’m up I can see it’s snowing outside the window. Not hard but those big fluffy flakes I have always loved as a girl.
“It’s snowing early.”
“No honey it’s December first, we’ve had snow here this time of year before.”
“It’s pretty.”
“It is, I’ve always love it when it’d snow like this.”
“You used to call this Mr. Thomas snow.”
“I did?”
“Yeah with the lamp posts and stuff you loved when I used to read the Narnia books to you as a kid.”
I duck my head and smile…try…it’s hard; it’s still a just scary thing to actually openly talk about this stuff with her like this. “I wanted to be Lucy so much…”
She sits beside me on my bed and she links her fingers in mine.
“It must be so hard…”
I nod and stare up and out my window and try to still see the snowflakes. “It is……” I stare a little longer and I look at her. “Do you hurt mom? I mean with everything as a woman?”
She looks and me and sort of turns a little more and gives me this really serious look. “You mean?”
“Now…after the mastectomies and the operation….?” Mom had a hysterectomy done too around the same time since her family had a history of other cancer too there.
She gets a little teary and shiny eyed. “I know I’m not supposed to, that I’m supposed to happy and grateful to be here honey and I am but I just don’t feel like me at all some days…not with all of what happened…yes, it hurts.”
I nod and a few tears spill out from my eyes again. “It’s like that Mom…it’s like that all the time.” (Sob!)
…………………..and there we’re both crying all over again and this time…this time though I think my mom’s crying because she gets it.
Come back soon…Part three
I fell asleep….The crying and the tension and Teddy leading to the whole thing with mom and stuff. I guess it all just added up and was too much too soon for me to stay awake.
It’s dark in my room when I wake up and there’s a telling scent in the air. Leather and cologne but over that the scent of wine dipped cigars that were a hallmark of my dad.
Dad…he’s scruffy looking as usual and smells like he just came back from having a smoke and he sets down the Grisham he was reading and fixes me with that dad stare.
It’s late and I’m pretty sure past regular visiting hours and he’s looking at me. I had no idea what to say or to do really. I mean my father’s not a mean guy but he’s really a guy. He’s that guy that works with his hands and he’s one of those guys that just does it all.
He’s got his mechanics course under his belt and small and heavy engine repair and he wears engine smells like aftershave sometimes. I mean when he bothers to shave. Dad’s no Duck dynasty guy but he’s one of those shaves when mom asks him guys. Hunts and fishes and all that stuff too and he’s just one of those guys.
Did I mention the cigars and the leather jacket?
I mean Teddy, he gets a pass with dad because he’s a kid and Dad doesn’t like expect that much from him other than that.
Okay he does…we all have to have good grades and do chores and dad didn’t doesn’t believe in being too easy on us because he says it builds character. Like never using the ride on mower we have or the snow blower because me and James were old enough to shovel, the same with doing dishes.
Okay I didn’t mind the dishes that much.
I blink and take a breath. “Hi dad…”
“Hmm…yeah that’s it hi?”
“I…I…I’m sorry…”
“Well there’s a start, you need to be sorry with what you did? What you have been doing?’
“I know…I know it’s I’m sorry it’s…I just can’t be someone I’m not anymore dad.” (Snuffle.) “I just can’t”
“Good.”
Good?
Huh?
“Good?”
“I never raised you to be one of those people that would rather lie than face up to the truth.”
(Snuffle.) “What should I have manned up to face it?”
“Yeah I think you should have.”
“Well I’m not a very good man dad in fact I’m not a man at all.”
“That doesn’t really matter Jennifer.”
Uhm what!?
I think I’m looking at him in a freaked out way.
“It doesn’t?”
“I thought that I raised you well enough that you’d have known better than to do this. Pills and wine and trying to kill yourself when you have family that loves you and people that love you and you put us all through a living hell by doing this.”
“I’m sorry….” My chest hurts and I feel like crying again but I’m still kind of dried out from my last big bout of crying with mom.
“Good, you should be. You imagine how it would feel if you actually did it? We’d have no warnings just this part of you that you hid and kept from us for who knows how long suddenly there and out in the open…and leaving all of us wondering why, why wouldn’t she trust us? Why wouldn’t she tell us what was going on? And what if it was something that we did or way more that we didn’t do that led you to killing yourself?”
Dried out or not the tears are coming. “I’m sorry dad; I’m so fucking sorry I was scared! I was scared that I was a freak no matter how much stuff I read and looked up I felt like I was failing you just like I’ve been doing all of you all my life!”
He looks at me. He gets up and goes over to my little service table rolly thing and he pours me a cup of water. I take it and take some grateful mouthfuls. I look at him and I’m still kind of lost.
“Dad…?”
“Hmm?” He makes that question sound he’s so good at.
“I’m sorry…I really am…but what do I do?”
He looks at me and he goes back over and he sits back down and does that groan huff of being overworked and stressed and tired and I lower my eyes and just stare at my waxed paper cup. It just kind of highlights that he’s here and he’s likely been here too the whole time and as disappointed as he is of me because of what I nearly did he’s still here.
And he does look more tired than I’m used to seeing him being.
Work’s one thing but this.
He looks at me. “You make up for it Jen. You do the hard stuff and you own up to what you’re feeling and you make the changes that you need to make to tell the truth…not just to me or your family or Marlene but to yourself.”
“I know…”
“Do you? You said you keep failing me and that’s not really true. All those things that you’ve been doing weren’t you. They were Michael and you’ve said that’s not you.”
“It’s not.”
“Then by God you don’t just quit. You pick yourself up like your mother did and you keep going. You’re her daughter; I want you to act like it.”
“Dad….”
He holds his hand up. “I love you; I will always love you you’re my daughter… (He looked like he was trying that one on for size.) but you really, really fucked up here Jennifer.”
“You don’t hate me?” (Sniffle.)
“No…not by a long shot.”
“But…?”
He gets up and he heads for the door and his voice is hoarse and thick with emotion. “But you have a lot of work to do before I’ll trust you and be proud of you again.”
“Dad…”
He opens the door and he steps out of the room and before he closes it I hear him say. “But I want to be proud of you angel…so much.”
He leaves closing the door and I can still sort of see him through the blinds and the glass and he’s wiping at his eyes.
I feel sort of happy and heartbroken by want he said all at the same time and it hurts…I mean it hurts so much that I did this and that I hurt him so much.
I made my daddy cry…
I’m hugging myself and the water cup gets spilled as my own tears and hurt because of what I did comes flooding up and I roll over onto my side facing the blank wall and bawl and whine.
“I’m sorry daddy…I’m so sorry…!”
Come back soon…Part four
I cry and I cry and it feels like I won’t stop and I don’t know how to stop because Michael could but Jennifer just can’t.
It hurts too, it hurts like crazy and I should know right? Actually knowing how close I came to hurting my family to really doing some serious damage it’s ripping me up inside. There’s part of me that had been. Fine no one see’s me I’ll show them and there was part of me just so goddamned tired. And like I told mom if it gets to you…gets in deep and you can live through the GID then you sometimes just don’t.
Wanting those things for it to stop and be sort of screaming at them. Here! See me! It blinded me to just how much permanent damage I’d do to so many lives.
And when it boils right down to it I don’t want to die. I never did I just wanted to live, to actually live and have someone just see me.
Jennifer.
I cry until the nurses come in to check on me and they get me a nice little shot of something that makes me warm and sleepy which stops my crying and one gets me a cup of tea and one of those little ice creams and she gets a washcloth and helps me wash my face before the drugs really kick in and sleep takes over me.
Paulina was really nice; I guess psyche ward nurses are good at not judging.
I slept a good while and I only vaguely remember then changing my drip and the vampire lady coming in for my bloods and I think I slept through most of that took. Having to pee again is what wakes me up and Mom is there doing a soduku book when I wake up.
“Morning sleepy head.” She smiles at me how can she smile at me?
“Morning Mum.” It just slipped out I have no idea why it did or where Mum with a
u came from either.
“Your dad won’t be in for a while he…he’s a bit embarrassed.”
“Wha..why?”
“He thinks he came down too hard on you like he usually does.”
“I deserved what he said Mum I wasn’t thinking of what I was doing…I just.”
I slump my shoulders and she gets up and she comes over and she hugs me. “He yelled at me too honey. When they told me my chances we’re good unless I has a double mastectomy I balked, I didn’t want to go through with something that was so much a part of me and even then my odds after that weren’t that good either.”
“Really.” (Sniffle.) Dammit I’m crying again.
Mom wipes my eyes clear. “Yeah and the thought of dying in a hostel bed full of chemo and radiation and wasting away missing everything because of the pain meds…I really, really thought about going out while I was still me.”
I stare at her. “You…you were going to?"
Mom wipes at her eyes and she nods. “And your dad found out and he lost it and he screamed at me…a lot.”
(Sniffle.) “What he’d say?”
“He grabbed me by my shoulders and he shook me really hard and he screamed at me with tears running down his face.”
Mom closes her eyes and tears fall spilling out and she takes this big huge breath and she start to recite it like she has it burned into her heart word for word.
………………………. “Grace you are my best friend, you are the only person in my life that has ever kept me from flying apart. You are that one really true thing that makes me wake up and be thankful that I have the life you built with me…you’re not done here, you can’t be…you can’t do this..you just fucking can’t…it’ll break us. Me and the kids…we need you and if this comes and it wins and the cancer wins then we can say that you fought, that you loved us, that you loved me and you fought to hang onto every second we have instead of leaving us…because if you left us it’d be so much different…so much worse because it’s always be there….that we weren’t worth it.”
She looks at me as she opens her eyes and wipes her tears away with her hand. (Mom-Sniffle.) “It was a hell of a guilt trip but he was right because I knew if he did it for whatever reason I’d be always asking the same thing. So I grabbed hold of the strongest thing I had which was all that love for him and you kids and I fought.” (Mom-Sniffle.)
“Oh Mum…I…”
“Jenny, sometimes you have to learn who you really are by walking through darkness and through fire.”
(Sniffle.) “Darkness and fire huh?”
She smiles one of those mom…no actually a mum smile at me. “There but for the grace of god and stuff right?”
(Sniffle.) “Yeah, I think I learned a lot from this…from you already.”
“Really, that’s a good thing y’know Jennifer.”
“Yeah…I know that…that like you learn in like church or the bible and stuff that you…you’re supposed to put others ahead of yourself.”
Mom hugs me and smiles. “As long as you remember that taking care of yourself and being true to yourself is taking care of others yes.”
I give her a trembly smile. “Darkness and fire huh…”
She nods and kisses my forehead. “We’re just people Jen and sometimes it’s just how we learn…the hard way.”
(Sniffle.) “So dad’s getting some space?”
(Mom-sniffle.) “Yes, he needs a little which is why I told him that it was okay and I’d be here and we’d talk because…well like mother like daughter.”
“I never knew…and…so he gets like that huh?”
“Yes, he’s a man and you know how over emotional they can get right?”
Oh…
Okay I was expecting to be in tears again but what she just said it gets me laughing and it’s like the laughter is cracking all this dried on emo-mess that’s all over me and it feels good.
It’s my first laugh since what I did and it’s with my mother woman to woman and it feels really damned good.
It feels right and it feels real.
I hug her and she hugs me back and she reaches down by her chair and she passes me a shoulder travel tote bag. “Here some clothes and things honey you go and take a shower okay and then we can get you to your new room.”
“New room?"
“Private room in the mental ward.”
“Oh…”
“Jenny you were really, really close to never coming back to us. They want you here for a couple of weeks for observation and stuff.”
I nod. “Okay…I can get that.”
I look in the bag and there’s underwear and there’s some sweats and tops all of them for a woman and some sundries and stuff. “There’s some Nair in there too they won’t let you have a razor.”
“Yeah I kind of figured…I hold up a No-No so this is for?”
“Your face as best we can do for it honey.”
I nod. It’s one of those things you see advertised on TV that women use to get rid of unwanted facial hair. I’m not sure how it’ll work for me but I don’t want any of the facial hair I do have and there’s an electric razor there too. It’s pink.
I’m smiling again. “Thanks Mum.”
“You’re welcome honey and there’s even this.” Mum pulls out a pink bag out of her purse and it’s a little pink make up case bag sort of thing from Kohl’s cosmetics and it has this cute little Eiffel tower on it.
“Make up?”
“Yeah it’s a good traditional Christmas gift.”
“It’s not Christmas yet.”
“No but Kohl is the closest I could come up with for a really important rebirth.”
“Huh? I think I’m still under sedation some because I don’t get it.”
“Kohl the make-up the real original stuff was made from the ashes of Frankincense. Like I said it’s the closest that I could come up with.” She’s smiling.
“Okay, where did you come up with that idea?”
“Hey it’s Christmas, and it was on Wikipedia.”
I look at her and I take the stuff and smile. “Okay wise lady you want to show me how I’m supposed to do this?”
“Definitely C’mon I want to see my daughter all cleaned up and besides…”
(Sniffle.) “Besides?”
“Just sponge baths, honey you’re starting to smell like a camel.”
Come back soon…part five.
It’s so cool what she did.
Mom…and what she shared too it’s likely the most personal mother daughter talk we’ve had. I mean not that we have had that many but still. I can imagine that she’s never really told that many people about the stuff that she had just share with me.
To actually have that for me is a bigger treasure than the things she brought me but I’ll take these things too.
“Here honey wait a second.”
She calls for a nurse and gets me unhooked and they don’t mind since I’m on a drip and I’m better hydrated now. Mind you if I keep crying like I have I won’t be. Does it hit other girls, women like me the same way? I mean when you finally stop hiding and you let the chunks of your leaden life fall away do you just end up crying more than you can ever remember?
Once their done it’s all nervous time and me getting undressed and thankfully mom doesn’t stay there to was and the hot water feels nice. Really nice and I get it good and steamy in there and I sweat. I don’t even add the cold water right away. I just stand close to the cold water then I take my shower puff and just squeeze hot water over me repeatedly I want to get clean like really clean right down to my pores.
I used to do this a lot even home because I was so…walled in that this as small as this is and my long hair were the only things that I could really do. I mean Marlene she and I we were M&M Mike and Marlene not Marlene and Jennifer.
I have to say that her not being here, her not coming to see me yet say stuff right?
And I cry in the shower to myself as I take the hair remover stuff and start using it.
Wow, it kinda stinks in that chemical perm kinda way and at the same time it’s a female scent too and one that my head’s trying to process with my heart and stuff. And it’s a good distraction too because holy frijoles its kind nasty and burny and when I use the “razor” but more like kinda an ice scraper thing it comes away clean…and smooth, so smooth I (Happy-sob) and then I laugh as the oddest thought comes to mind. Living in Alaska and removing my Nair in the shower with an ice scraper.
“Jenny you okay?”
Jenny…I sigh and a happy smile. “Ye…yeah mom just kind of unhairy happy.”
“Feel good?”
“Oh mom you have no idea.”
“Oh yes I do young lady, parts and hormones aside hair’s hair and I am not a fan of mine.”
“Okay I guess it’s just it’s one of the things that I’ve hated so much about myself.”
“Then it’s a good thing that it’s getting fixed right?”
(Sniffle.) “Definitely.”
I start to do it more and in earnest and there’s some parts that I likely shouldn’t have done but the burn isn’t any worse in fact I kind of have this kind of little gritted smile and a tale that as my crotch becomes bare. Yes I did it there and it’s not a sex thing I just don’t want guy thatch in my panties. I don’t want my branch and berries there either I mean why couldn’t I just have a proper wreath and be like I should have been?
I make myself snerk at the very un-Christmas like Christmas analogy.
……Dear Santa I want a vagina for Christmas.
Kinda sad but at the same time I can actually remember writing those letters to the North pole as a kid and because I was writing Santa and not my folks I would actually write. “Please Santa I hate being a boy can you make me a girl.”
I think my first one was in pink and red crayons and I was like seven or eight.
I’m so grateful for the really big grate drain that the shower has here. There was a lifetime worth of guy fur that is gone now from everywhere but my head. I so want that gone too and at the same time as red as the Nair has me in places I don’t want to do that. If I can look better. Different than Mike in another way I’ll do that but I just don’t want to mess with my face because at least after a shave I can do the cover and conceal maybe.
I turn the cold water on now and I lather myself up and oh…oh it’s this vanilla peach kind of scent and it’s entirely femme and there’s like even these exfoliating beads and I scrub down twice and it even hurt a little in the Naired areas but it was so worth washing years of guy off of me.
Mom calls out. “Jennifer let me do your hair in the sink you need a trim.”
“Okay.” I’m actually not going to fight it because guys don’t care about their hair so I’ve barely ever did anything like get rid of my split ends.
I turn the shower off and mom hands me towels and I dry off and then she hands me.
A gaff…
Okay I’ve read about these and what t-girl really hasn’t and it’s not really like spandex but this one’s closer to a heavy duty hose or like the stuff that they make leggings out of. It’s oddly comfortable and not. I mean it’s tucking and stuff and I’d rather not have to do it but it’s not as bad as some stories I’ve read say.
Actually this is kinda thongish and that takes getting used to more than the front feelings.
I smile though because the whole thong thing is way more a girl thing than a guy thing and to me thongs on a man better be flip-flops and he’d best be Australian.
No just eww.
Not that I’m into guys.
Nope, I still like girls, women.
I’m a translesbian.
And now I’m thinking about Marlene again.
Panties are next and then mom passes me a bra…and gel inserts.
I open the shower curtain. “Mom? How?”
She smiles. “I guessed from Mike’s dress shirts for work and I went from there.”
“Oh.”
Then she steps back and she looks at me.
“Mom?”
“Come here Jenny.”
She does this tug and she pulls me in front of the sink and the pretty big mirror there and I look…I mean my face sort of still is me but with how skinny I am… I diet and I muscle burn I read about it and I know it’s not something that you should really do but I was so sick of the way that I looked.
But without that bulge of grossness there and in a cute pair of cotton panties I look.
I look more me than I ever had in my life.
I stare…and stare and tears spill out. “Oh Momma…” and I mean that in that best little girl way too.
Then mom really does it.
“Just a sec honey.” I look at her and she uses a wash cloth and gets all of her make-up off and she steps in and she leans in and hugs me and she does this cheek to cheek thing and…we look like each other.
I mean I’m still me and the differences are the ones that my damned XY wrought but without make-up we have a really close complexion. We have the same structure of our cheekbones and stuff around the eyes.
“See like mother like daughter.” She says and there’s a real smile there that melts away so much of the pain.
“I…I thought I looked like you sometimes.” I’m not crying because the reality has kind of stunned me. I mean how many times do you get those whole there see she’s been right all along moments?
“You do and likely will even more once we get you into treatment.”
“Yeah…” I’m still mesmerised and mom actually does this thing like a nurse and helps me dress into my first real bra and then adds in the flesh toned silicone inserts and I’m morphing almost into myself.
It’s such a strong realization of seeing the real me it hurts so much and in such a good way…but it’s also double edged too because as she’s doing this for me I realize she does this too now. And she’s not crying or looking like her doing this is taking her to that place that’d crush me if it happened instead she’s looking at me with shiny eyed pride.
“You ready for more Jenny.”
I nod and now there’s some tears coming. “Yes Momma.”
She gets a chair from in my room and backs it to the sink and gets me sat down to start on my hair and she wipes the tears away and kisses my forehead. “You keep this up and we will have to seriously invest in a lot of waterproof make-up girl.”
Come back soon…Part six
I’m so in this daze but I a good one as mom has me in the chair first and my head leaning over it and into the sink. I’ve never dared going to a salon or a hair dresser it had always been a barber because honestly I didn’t trust my resolve in anything else.
Breaking down crying in one wouldn’t likely be the best thing.
But this is a Cinderella daze.
Like imagine if someone came in with you being poor as dirt and cleaning you up, making you look pretty and sending you off to have the same as all the other girls did.
It’d feel like a spell or magic right?
It feels like that now.
Fingers in my hair washing my scalp, that great scratchy feeling and the smells. I mean it really you know you’re deprived when something as simple as Pantene smells like heaven.
Mom gets me all set and conditioned and wow…I’ve never actually waited the entire time it says on the bottle before. I mean does anyone?
While we’re waiting mom uses the electric razor on me and then the No-No thing and then it’s this face mask stuff to un-do the guy damage on my pores.
Seriously it’s not like guys do stuff to clean their pores and stuff…ever.
She even has these pads to go over my eyes with some stuff on them and that’s when
I hover between falling asleep and crying. I can feel her rinsing my hair then toweling it before going onto my eyebrows and tweezing them. She doesn’t do too much or it doesn’t seem like it which is good.
I don’t want a unibrow but I don’t want drawn on eyebrows either.
Those, those are nasty.
Then she gets me up and turned around in the chair and I have the things off my eyes which doesn’t look like they’re changed but like I can sort of feel the stress dark under them like cleaned up some?
Even with the mask stuff on just the brows and my eyes it seems different. Like I’m wearing a different expression? Mom takes the towel off and starts to comb and brush my hair going in different angles and stuff like she’s trying to see what way she wants to do this?
The scissors and comb come out and she starts doing her thing.
“Mom?”
“Yes Honey?”
“What has Mar said?”
“She freaked out; she was the one who found you Jennifer. She moved out.”
My stomach drops out. “Oh…”
“She said she kept seeing your body there and was having nightmares.”
(Sniffle.) “Dammit…I really screwed up right.”
“Yes Honey, you definitely did that. Though she’s been by to visit.”
“But not since I’ve woken up.”
“No, she’s been busy she’s said. Closing the apartment you too had, packing Michael’s things. Working, your dad said she’s doing a lot of overtime.”
(Sniffle.) “Dad? They’re talking?”
“Yes, actually of all things.”
See the story behind that is dad well he’s one of those kind of old school stoic guys and he likes things as he likes things. Well he likes things unchanging, the way that they should be. Marlene’s always been outspoken and she’s always been a best foot forward kind of girl but challenging too.
We met when I was working a catering job as a waiter during the G20 thing and she was protesting.
No her and her friends weren’t the vandals, there was more to it than that and I thought as soon as I saw her. “Wow…” and even as messed up as I had been then on the inside it was very much a breathless wow.
So I “spilled” a few trays of stuff for the big wigs and I got fired pretty fast for it but as I left I had ten or so catering trays and fed her and her friends.
Her and dad butted heads sometimes.
A lot of sometimes actually.
The fact that they are talking means that things have gone from the normal stuff to serious stuff and the fact the mom said that they’re talking and not fighting. Well that means…well I’m not sure what that means.
I take a breath as she starts to dry my hair with the hair dryer and doing this whole comb and brush stuff. I mean I think I know what she’s doing she’s adding a wave by using the brush as a curler but without ever actually having done it I really can’t be sure.
Which kind of sums up a lot of what I’ve gone through my entire life living through other women while never actually getting there myself.
(Tired, so tired sigh.) “Mom…? So what does that mean for me…I mean after here and stuff where am I going to stay?”
“Your Dad’s moved your things back into the house. But don’t worry about that Jennifer it’s actually a good thing.”
“How? I’m back in the house. I mean no offense mom but I’m too old to be living at home.”
“Well it won’t be forever Jen it’ll just be until you get back up on your feet.”
“Okay…” (Sigh.) I don’t mean for it to sound like I’m not grateful and stuff but Dad was one of the reasons why I left. I love him to death but he was always going on about the whole his generation and that whole meme-without-a-meme thing they have of ‘Get a haircut and get a real job.’ We butted heads on that a lot and I was never into the stuff that he saw as things that I should know like shop and sports and stuff. Though with dad it actually wasn’t about jockdom as him admitting that it looked good for college and resumes with me being a team player and stuff. That and even if I was on a team with someone that made good in life then that’s a sort of contact that would be good later in life.
He was much more a shop guy because everyone should be good with his hands.
Me going and taking arts as my degree wasn’t really a choice he remotely approved of.
Dad… “Unless you’re going to be a teacher an arts degree is right next to useless in the real world.”
So me with my string of jobs and losses like the catering one and waiting tables and stuff to make ends meet never really went over well.
The thing is that… how can you be successful when you’ve never been yourself?
Unless you’re really good at faking it.
I guess I was reasonably good at doing that.
I was able to keep employed most of the time. I was working at the Green Bean coffee house and it was actually working out okay. It was just a few days a week but it had been by far one of the better places that I had worked. It was very hip and college student friendly and stuff.
And I had a great girlfriend living with me.
Until all of this.
“Mom…I’m scared, what if Marlene and I…”
“Jennifer you have to give yourself and her time to recover. Her finding you and about all of this is a huge shock to her. Not only did she nearly lose you she didn’t even have a clue as to why until that same time and it has to be a real shocker that she’s been in a same gender relationship.”
“I know…god I know.”
“It will work out honey; you just have to have some faith and some patience.”
“I’ll try, just being Mike for so long has sort of shredded stuff like that mom.”
“Well that’s why you’re getting help kiddo.”
She gets done and then she gets the stuff off my face and okay I know I had a lot of guy years there but the stuff she had used it really did pull the stuff out of my pores and all I can really think of is Ick…but…it feels like an inside part of me is cleaner.
The she does my face with a liquid to powder foundation from my bag and some eye pencil and just a light shade of lipstick. It’s really more of a colored peach balm but it’s still….so much this.
I have snuck make up on before, just doing or trying to do my face sometimes was a fast way for me to try and see and feel myself and this, this actually feels good, it feels like it’s right just as much as every time I’ve touched my face between shavings and felt the stubble there as being wrong.
It’s a really visceral feeling but actually a good one.
Then it’s getting dressed and Mom has a set of these really nice fluffy almost plush pajamas and they’re pink with poinsettias on them and candy canes and teddy bears too.
When I finally get a look at myself it’s a good thing that I’m sitting down because it’s stunning. It’s not the me from my dreams, she’s a genetic girl and she’s a lot prettier than I am and stuff but right now, right now is as close as I have ever gotten in actually reality with me matching both inside and out.
Mom grins and she does the face to face side by side and she’s redone hers likely while I had my eyes closed at some point and we do look like we’re related, like a female related way.
“Kinda awesome huh?”
I nod. “More than awesome if I could get rid of the facial hair and stuff.”
“And stuff?”
“Oh mom there’s a big list of stuff that…it’s not really that important.”
“Yes, yes it is.”
“Mom…”
“Jen whatever it is going to be that you need to be you we’re right with you okay? Getting rid of the facial hair, that trachea shave voice thing, the whole nine yards.”
“Mom…that’s too expensive…”
“Pfft it’s our money; we can spend it how we want to.”
“Yeah and I can chip in too.” …………………….!?” I look over and I see Peter the oldest brother and he looks…well he looks like he’s been better.
“Pete?”
“Yeah, Jen it’s me.”
“Jen?”
“Well yeah I might have been in Brazil but I did have a Sat phone at the job site.”
Peter’s actually a construction guy but more than that he’s like an engineer he works on jobs like building those huge radio telescopes and stuff and observatories. That’s what he was doing this time building a telescope.
I blush.
I mean it’s the first time anyone other than mom has seen me and Pete looks at me and I can’t help but to sort of hunch.
He sets down this really big hockey bag that he uses all the time to travel and stuff and he opens his arms up.
I’m a bit scared and sort of shy and I don’t really know why Peter and I never had an adversarial sibling thing we’re all actually pretty far apart that it’s never been an issue with the three of us.
But with Pete and like dad, I’m scared because of the hurt I caused and what he’s feeling about me. He does the big brother thing and meets me more than halfway he comes in the rest of the way for the hug.
Oh god that feels good.
“I’m sorry.”
“Good, you’re going to get help, get to be you?’
I lean back and look at him. “Pete?”
“Two people that work for me down there are transgendered Jen, I’m not a stranger to it.”
“Okay…”
“But I guess this explains why you were always such the quiet loner in school and just seemed so sad sometimes huh?”
(Sniffle.) “Yeah…”
“But now you’re feeling more you? The real you?”
(Smiley-sniffle.) “Yeah…”
He tweaks my nose a little. “That should be Yes, young ladies don’t go around saying yeah all the time.”
I blush.
He hugs me tighter and laughs as he holds me. “Right on I can still tease you only over all sorts of new stuff.”
I groan but it’s a sort of happy one. “Pee…teeerrr…”
He lets me go and I sit on the edge of my bed and he has a really big smile.
“What?”
His face breaks out into a grin. “I had some time between all the flights getting here and stuff so I got my assistants to find me this as a sort of pre-Christmas present.”
“Peter you didn’t have to, you just being okay with me being me is more than I deserve.”
“So you don’t want it then?”
“I didn’t say that.” (Sniffle.)
He laughs. “You are such a girl. Well it really does fit then. Here jenny you’re first birthday present from me.”
He passes me this pretty big box and it’s wrapped pretty nicely and I do open it like a girl. I want to save the paper, and the bow. It really is my first birthday present from Peter to Jennifer.
It’s a doll, I go really carefully since I can tell it’s a vintage toy from the look of the cardboard and stuff and my breath catches in my chest.
It’s not one of those vintage porcelain dolls I’m not really into those but this…this is like he could look back and read my mind.
It’s a Kid Sister doll…like from the 90’s when I was little, like really little and that was just one of those things at the time that was just…
And I look at Peter as he sits down beside me and he pulls me into a hug and starts holding me tight and singing the song from the commercial to me.
‘Cause I’m his kid sister.
Come back soon…part 7
Peter stays with me while mom’s getting us some tea. I’m normally a coffee person but right now they’re not wanting me to have something that might make me edgy. I’m pretty sure it’s decaf tea.
It was really good with him there and him holding me and me getting to hold my Kid sister doll.
“Thanks Pete, this was awesome.”
“Well to be honest I did have some help. I asked Katerina at work what she would have wanted.”
“Oh and she said this?”
“No she first said what I still want y’know and then she kinda let me know about how much it sucked and hurt growing up and being excluded from everything from having friends that were really friends and not her trying to blend in and clothes and stuff. Basically she told me. I want my childhood back.”
(Sniffle.) I nod. “I can so, so get that.”
Peter looks at me and he gives me this well duh look. “Given how much of a sad little lost girl you must have been, yeah you should.”
(Sniffle.) “You’re still being really cool about this.”
“Like I said I know transpeople down there and knowing Katrina has really helped.”
“You like her?”
“Uhm yeah.”
“No I mean like her like her despite everything.”
Peter looks at me. “You know I honestly could. Kat’s nice and she’s charming and she has a great sense of humor.”
“Is she pretty?”
“Very but she’s with a guy and they’re very happy. She’s a co-worker jenny and a friend.”
I nod and look at him. “You seeing anyone yet?”
“I was but currently not at the moment.” He has this clouded look. I turn and hug him this time. “Sorry bro.”
He laughs. “I’m already liking Jenny being out better. Mike was too much of a guy to give a shit.”
I nod and… (Sniffle.) “I wasn’t allowed to that’d be too girly and I thought since all the stuff was going on in my head that I had to be as much a guy as I could stand.”
“Well maybe you’ll be happier as Olive-oil.”
“Olive-oil?”
“Yeah because you were playing Popeye before.”
“What? How was I playing Popeye I don’t know a thing about boats?”
He gets this scrunched up face like he’s trying to imitate Popeye. “’Cause ye could only stans so much and ye couldn’t stans no more.”
Oh my god, I roll my eyes and thump him in the shoulder. “Boo, Boo bad joke that one stank, give me a dollar.”
He grins and nods and he pays me a looney. It’s a tradition in our family that when you tell a really bad joke a person you told it too can charge you a buck. You’d think that’d curb that kind of joking but it actually kind of does the opposite.
Mom comes in with Dad and Tommy and it’s.
It’s my whole family here and in my room and it’s really scary and strange and twilight zone like in the best of ways. I mean dad just sort of comes in and does thing one armed swing to get him planted up on my bed and then he passes a bag of stuff to mom and leans in and kisses my cheek.
“Hey Jenny.”
“Hey Dad.” I’m smiling in that eager but anxious biting my lips kind of way and he takes the chair and mom gets up and slips out leaving dad with the bag and he’s taking out some chocolate milks and a bag of popcorn and mom comes back with one of those COW’s. That’s a computer on wheels the ones you see the nurse with sometimes. Turns out that sometimes they’ll let families use them too or patients.
“Well that would have let me check my e-mails.”
Peter goes. “Pfft, E-mails yeah you just wanted to check your Facebook like any other girl.”
I blush and duck my head. See I have a FB account that’s me and not Mike’s I’ve had it for a while now. Mom looks over at me. “You already have a girl account?”
I nod.
“Well Friend me okay!?”
“Uhm…okay…” Wow that’s scary because if I do then she’ll see stuff that’s me. My stuff and interests and posts. My online life has been me ever since I knew that I could sort of have one there.
There’s a part of me that wants to take that back and hide from it all and her finding out but I’ve already said okay.
We all actually settle in and we watch some movies on DVD. They’re mostly kid stuff but we’re watching Wreck-it-Ralph and Tommy hugs me out of the blue. “You’re not a glitch.”
(Sniffle.) I tear up too because I was so identifying with Vanellope the way she was, how she felt about herself. I know that they made her to appeal to the way that girls feel being the outsiders but I feel it too.
I’ve felt outside of everything all of my life.
It’s all really kind of a good time though with me hugging and hanging onto my little brother and having my Kid Sister doll wedged against me and we are just kind of doing this family movie thing. We haven’t had all of us together in a long time so it’s kind of extra special and it’s the very first really family thing with me being me.
By the time we’re done it’s supper and even though I had popcorn I do have my soup and stuff and the doctor comes in and looks at me.
“Well, I thought that I’d have to wait awhile to have you moved to the ward but we’ve lucked out and one of the private rooms just opened up.”
“Got lucky?”
“Well yes no room at the inn and all that usually.”
“Oh…uhm okay.”
He just nods again and everyone helps me get my things and stuff and I feel kind of silly in my pajamas and carrying a doll and at the same time there’s this scared little girl part of me that is good with it. I kinda need the support. Having my family going with me and helping me out means so much more than I will ever be able to likely say to them.
We go down to the fifth floor and through some hallways and I’ve never really been to the hospital that much other than like going to outpatients of the occasional bit of like blood work that my family doctor had ordered.
I really didn’t know what to think about going into the mental health ward and even the name/title of it on the door made me feel freaked out. That and the fact that while there was security in the hospital you only seen them doing rounds not here…here were two fairly big guys with a desk and stuff like down at reception here outside the doors.
It was kind of scary too even if they sort of friendly smiles.
Inside was…
It was pretty sterile but not at the same time there was actually all this sift pastel blue on the walls and someone made white fluffiness like clouds up all along the ceiling. It was kind of okay and calming I guess. Then there was this large common area with tables and chairs all looking made safe by being all plastic and stuff. Bean bag looking chairs and lots of love seats and there’s a mini library and well it kind of looks like what you’d see in a mental ward out of the movies.
Most of the other patients here look kind of normal and stuff except for a few that are sort of restrained…? Those are kind of scary because they’re not like struggling…well one is and she’s saying stuff in French.
The doctor looks at me. “We have a few hear that aren’t safely mobile as well as some of the Dementia and Alzheimer’s that are too negatively active to be left on a regular nursing floor and often we’re waiting for a room for them in a special care home. That’s Ellie she has Dementia just don’t go too close to her because she might be restrained but she’ll bite if she gets the chance to.”
I’m shown around and we all are and then to my room where the nurses come and meet me but the go over my things too and they look like they’re making a list too while working at seeing if I have anything dangerous.
It’s again a kind of scary thing to have happen.
I earned it though. I think that part of the place is to foster a feeling of never again in us.
Mom helps me get things set up what little I have and then it’s some hugs and kisses and some more hugs and a promise that they’ll be here and back as soon as they’ll be allowed and then they leave.
They leave and I’m all alone in the mental ward.
It’s still kind of early in the afternoon and after a makeup wrecking cry at being here and alone and well just crying because this is what my life turned out like…yeah tears.
And a mess of my face and stuff so I clean up and I decide to sort of go exploring…a book might actually help me keep my mind off of things and me from freaking out until my sessions and stuff where I’ll likely be freaked out.
I actually get lost in looking through the titles and some of these are really old stuff but that’s actually okay as I’m not going to be picky with this stuff. One of the nurses comes over to me. “Jennifer? You have a visitor.”
“Am I allowed any right now?”
“Not family but I think she needs to see you before she explodes or something.”
“Explodes?....wait…Marlene! She hates hospitals with a passion; she’d been in them in her teen years when she had something bad happen in one.” No I don’t know what, she’s never really said but she never stays in them for long.
I head out to the front where she’s at and I stare at her there, my breath catches in my throat and my eyes tear up and I stop in my tracks and look at her there.
She’s pacing, pacing and doing that thing where she keeps doing stuff with her hands that she has no idea of what to do with her hands. She’s beautiful, I’ve always thought so even when she doesn’t. She hates her soft brown hair kissed with red, the straight fall of it. She tries so hard to put body into it and wave. Me I love the way it falls and the way it frames her face. She has glasses and needs them and do I really have to point out the thousands of sexy times and cute ones that come out from that?….And then there’s the blinks…that thing she does when I take her glasses off and kiss her.
It’s all that and more, I love the way she just is and I’ve missed her way more than I could have even put into words.
I’m trying to get it out…but the way I look…her seeing me like this and not in my bad attempt messed up by tears…oh…oh my make up’s all messed up from crying earlier.
“Mar…Marlene…”
She looks up at me because she was sort of not looking my way when I got there or if she saw me she didn’t…
“Mik…Jen?……I…I didn’t recognize you.”
“Y..yeah and scary make-up face doesn’t help.”
She nods and walks over looking at me and shoving her hands into her jacket pocket. So not like that whole casual strut thing…It’s Mar, it’s kinda her secret hunch.
“I…I can’t stay…I…I just can’t not here…and I have to go work…”
I nod and I hug myself and there’s tears there, I can’t help it. “Mar…I…I’m sorry…” It comes out as a whine.
She nods and she hugs me. It’s fast and sudden and it’s the tightest hug I’ve ever had from her in my life and she’s shaking. She’s holding me and she’s shaking herself so hard and It’s all that’s coming out of me… “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…..” Over and over and she’s nodding into my shoulder and neck and I think at one point she was just breathing me in?
She pushes back and she wipes at her face and then my eyes with her thumbs and I’ve never seen her have that kind of expression on her face before. “Jen…I…I have to go…I…”
She shoves this envelope in my hand and she backs off and then leaves pretty fast. It’s that shy girl that Marlene can be sometimes with a lot of that hospital thing and likely…likely what’s in the letter.
Was what she wrote in here that scary?
Mouth dry eyes not I stare at it and where I saw her last and I end up hugging myself. I’m trying to remember her hugging me and I walk to my room and go inside and look out the wireglass window and feel her thumbs wiping my tears away.
I set the letter on my bed and I go wash my face, and drink a bunch of Dixie-cups of water and breathe and try to work up the courage to….
Sit down on my bed, open up the envelope and read…
***
Jennifer…
Still, I can't believe it... That you tried this!
You’re such a vibrant part of my life. And this, this whole thing punched me in the gut…hurt me so bad…took the wing right out of my sails. Seeing you there on the floor not moving, not breathing dressed and mascara run all over your face. I still see it…and I just couldn’t live there anymore.
I’d wake up crying because you weren’t with me and then I’d go out and stare at that spot and my wrists would ache remembering the CPR and the paramedics pulling me away.
I want to hit you for that I really want to scream at you for that.
My life’s never been easy Jen.
I’m not the easiest person in the world to get along with. I get frustrated easy because of all the stuff floating around in my head. Abuse does funny shit to you but you know that and you look past all the other stuff.
Stuff, stuff that no one else in my life ever did and for a while it just hit me so hard that I could have lost you for real and for good that night and it’s been swimming around non-stop in my brain that I could lose you even yet.
Now, it's like living a REAL nightmare. My life without you Jennifer, it’d be so dull, so pointless, so insanely void of anything worthwhile. God just the thoughts, I’ve been choking on my grief for weeks now.
I doubt I’d will ever truly be whole again without you. What's more, I don't want to be anything without you. I’m not going to be the real me I discovered because I fell in love with you.
All I WANT is YOU. All I WANT is YOU here to share life with me.
WITHOUT YOU it IS so utterly Pointless...
I LOVE YOU.
I love you with every breath; without you by my side, holding my hand and breathing with me. Holding me tight against all the stuff during my days and just keeping me safe from myself at night.
My heart aches for you. I need your touch, your smile, your funny jokes and those longing stares and warm tight hugs to reflect my worth. Without you it is all utterly worthless... Really Jennifer.
It’s not about the sex, it can’t be about the sex when I’ve cried and cried over all the stuff that makes you and me and it’s just you that I need, not some gender or sex or…
I just need you.
Come home, please?
***
It’s, It’s so hard to breathe I’m crying that hard and there’s things in here that I never thought…I didn’t know…I mean I knew she love Mike but I really didn’t know the things that she wrote here.
I curl up and grab my pillow and bawl…I’m crying for what I did and I’m crying for what I nearly lost and I’m crying because I feel “Found” for the first time.
Come back soon…Part 8 Finale.
I think it took three full days for me to calm down really after getting Mar’s letter. I mean I was kind of calm especially after a nice little pill but with everything that I’d been through and that had happened and just built up in my life that letter became a touchstone.
I kept in the envelope but that envelope was with me everywhere…well except the shower.
Being in the mental ward was not what I thought it was going to be like. One there’s no internet they don’t want stuff that might be out there or said to trigger someone. I kind of agree even though I’d just really like to be on chat with Marlene but with the stuff the nurse explained to me about how someone that thinks their being cute posts something and if we read it and the someone gets set off.
It makes sense.
We get one hour of family time a day too. It sounds like jail but while our families can be there with us they’re a distraction too. It’s supposed to be about getting better or trying too and even if I’m here under observation.
Kinda like if they observe I’m not trying then I’m here a lot longer.
Honestly I want to go home.
I’d be lying if I was to make the place out like it was a bad place. I was unsettled at being here and really it mostly stuff in my head. I mean you watch enough TV and you get the wrong idea of how things are. It’s actually kind of sedate which is actually okay for my girl interrupted.
Yeah a movie title and actually a fairly good film I recommend it for some people but then again I like Wynona Ryder ever since Heathers.
I take a drink of my coffee and look over at Dr. Scott and he’s in his “Office.” Which is actually an activity room on the other side of the hall to get into the ward and he uses such a big room because he does group and stuff in here too.
He’s been pretty good so far. He looks back at me and takes a drink of his own and he then takes a look at his notes.
“I like the way that you worded this Jennifer.”
“Uhm thanks, I’m not really educated in this stuff so I was just trying to write down the stuff that I feel as objectively as I could.”
He smiles. “That’s actually better than breaking things down into all these clinical thoughts and expressions actually. We’re human beings and while clinical analysis is a wonderful thing for writing papers and text books I’ve never been the kind of Doctor that was into seeing his patients eyes gloss over or go cross while they were getting things textplained to them.”
“You don’t do that and I really, really appreciated it.”
“Good, getting you onboard and feeling as part of your own process in a big deal.”
I take another drink of my coffee. It’s decaf but it’s still coffee. It’s nice just to be able to hold the mug the way that it feels natural for me to.
Cradling it my hands where I can soak in the warmth and the experience of it.
“So what’s next?”
He looks at me. “Well I want you to do some of the art therapy here but I want you to go ahead and be creative as your real self.”
“My real self?”
“Yes You Jennifer.”
“I’ve sorry it’s just I keep expecting you to be more in my face about who I am.”
“I’m here to make sure you’re feeling well enough to deal with the world outside Jen. I’ve looked over your charts and I’ve talked with you a few times now and read the stuff you’ve written here and given all of that and the fact that you’re a relatively sane young woman I have to agree with your own conclusion.”
“Relatively sane.”
“Everyone is only relatively sane.”
“But I tried to kill myself?”
“Technically you did your heart had stopped Jen.”
“Oh…”
“Yes a really big freaking oh.”
“Are Doctors allowed to say freaking?” I smile and have another sip.
“In my case yes but then again I’m a shrink so I’m crazy to start with.”
Okay that makes me smile. “So I get to be me in here.”
“Well considering that in your letter that once you really knew and understood what was wrong to you and that living as Mike was like living in a garage with the car on and really bad music. I think yeah we’ll go with that.”
I sigh pretty relieved.
He continues. “I want you to do some of the art therapy and I want you to take the morning tai-chi class here in the hospital and then go to the Trans therapy group that is held on Tuesday and Thursday nights here.”
“I can leave the ward?”
“A security guy will take you to both so not freely but I think the tai chi will let you unfocus. You’re still really tightly wound Jen and that’s not good and you need the exposure to some other trans-people and sitting in on the groups and stuff will let you see that you’re not alone in this.”
I nod. “Okay…so…?”
“So that’s it, you’ve got lunch in about fifteen and then we’ll handle things from there. I still want a letter from you every day in like a journal entry and until I think we need to have a talk again we’re good.”
He gets up and he walks me to the door and I kinda slow and I want to give him a hug because this whole thing could’ve been a lot worse. He smiles and gives me the nod and I give him a light hug and he returns it.
If at a guess I’d have to say that it’s part of my therapy with like girls and women and self-expression and stuff but honestly he just is one of those down to earth doctor types that’s more about the patients than about being the doctor I think.
Regardless it feels good to be allowed to just hug as much as it did to hold my coffee the way that I’ve always wanted.
I get resettled into my room and I even start on my next letter. I actually start each one with what I’m feeling or learned after my session with him.
I get about a page in when it’s dinnertime.
I come out to see what they have and I see arms waving out in the hall through the glass and its mom and Marlene’s with her.
Mar looks like one of those people who hate to fly in the airport or in a plane.
I wait and they get buzzed in and I go to meet them.
“Hi…I…uhm wow you’re here?”
Mom beams and Marlene nods and then she looks at me instead of the floor like she really didn’t want to look around the place. There’s something there in her eyes and it doesn’t look like a bad thing.
It actually looks like she’s relieved to see me.
I try a smile, a real one, one of mine and I wasn’t expecting the expression that flickered across her face. Or that she stepped in and she hugged me….
Oh…
So much yes.
God she smells so good but really odd at the same time. All spicy but like in this evergreen but not evergreen kind of way and it is strong and heady but all mixed in with that is that smell that’s Mar…her soap and shampoo and her skin…and just her.
I ache with home much her hug takes me home…home to her so fast.
She hangs onto me too. I can feel her smelling me and breathing me in and I do the same. “I’ve missed you.”
I nod into her neck. “I’ve missed you too.”
“The new apartment sucks.”
(Sniffle.) “I’m sorry.”
“Your mom wants you to live at home when you get out.”
(Sniffle.) “No…I want to live with you.”
(Sniffle.) “Good.”
I move in the hug but still holding her but moved so I can look at her. “You okay?”
“No…I hate these places.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
Mar she gives me that look again like the one from just before she stepped in and hugged me. She does a sniffle and a blink.
And then she nods.
She’s never told me before.
(Sniffle.) “You know I’m a foster kid right?”
I nod.
(Sniffle.) “Well when I was younger I never fit in anywhere because of that…I had all the acne and the bad clothes and all that stuff that came with being unwanted by my real family and being bounced around and stuff.” (Sniffle.)
(My Sniffle.) “I knew you had a shitty childhood.”
She nods and she looks down and then she rests her head on my chest…uhm…falsies.
“I fell in with the wrong bunch and stuff and I started to sleep around because I thought that if I did that someone might like me…maybe even love me…but they didn’t that j...just used me and stuff and then I got pregnant.”
“Oh…oh god Mar what happened?”
“I was happy even though the kids at school called me a slut and the guy well he went MIA over it and I was still happy because they’d have been mine, my baby and she’s love me y’know?”
I hug her a little tighter and she looks up at me. “I miscarried her Jen…she was going to be my little angel and she died…because my body killed her.” (Sniffle.)
(My sniffle.) “What why?”
“They found all these fibroids and cysts inside of me and they said I got them because my birth mom had been on some kind of drugs for fertility but they were like bad in a whole lot of people and they caused all sorts of bad stuff to happen in the kids that were born after they took it and stuff.” (Sniffle.) “After that I was in these places for years with them digging in me and scarping and cutting things out for tests and then they took it all out…”
(My sniffle.) “Oh babe that’s not your fault…it isn’t.”
(Sniffle.) “It never felt like it, I was just turning sixteen…it felt like it just confirmed everything about me that I thought that I knew and that I was poison.”
I look at her and wipe my eyes. “You’re not poison, you’re the person I love and that I need.”
Marlene looks at me and she has that look again. (Sniffle.) “Really?”
“Yes really, there are not a lot of people that would write me the things that you did, that’d stay by me after everything and tell me all of that stuff.”
“Jen…it didn’t look like it but when we met I was just barely hanging on and stuff too. I had no idea, none at all that I was really any kind of worthwhile person until we met and I fell in love with you.”
My heart does that….ow my heart thing and I have some tears slipping out all over again because I see it so much more now not just me and her but her…deeper and differently now that she’s opening up to me.
See when I met Marlene it was actually at a sci-fi con and she was at one of the comic trade areas in a heated debate and stuff and it was just like wow…here’s a girl that doesn’t take any guff. She was so tough and passionate and geeky but in such a good way. And we ended up on the same side in that debate and from that it was some fast food and stuff and she’d always been the one person I’ve ever been as close to being Jennifer with.
She just sort of brought so much of me to the surface that my life as Mike felt so much more alive.
(My sniffle.) “I thought you were so tough when I met you Mar…like all this stuff that you’ve been through was just stuff and you…”
(Sniffle.) “I…what?”
“You made me feel safe. Like I could be more me around you than with anyone else in my whole life.”
“You...you or Mike you?”
“Me…Jennifer…but I was so scared that after we’d come so far that if I told you that I’d lose you and that would have…”
“But…it just got too hard?”
(My sniffle sob.) “Yes…!” It comes out a squeaky sobby whine. “I was so close, so close that it felt like I was leaking out, only with all this Mike around my and that armor being screwed on so dam tight that every time my GID would get kick in it was like inside was dying and choking and the outside me hurt so much because it was like I was flying apart at the seams.”
She gives me this look and then it changes even and her eyes widen a little and she smiles at me and it’s.
God her smile, her real smile that one that she hides from everyone it just breaks me in the best of ways.
“So you’ve always been the girl that I think that I’m starting to fall for all over again with.”
What!?
“………………..M…Marlene…?” (Stunned sob.)
I’m not really big at five eight and she’s not really short at five six but she stands on her tip toes just so she can reach to my chin and be just that little bit taller than me when she kisses me.
Kisses me like I’m the girl that I am.
And my heart’s breaking and coming alive all over again and there’s a river of happy tears spilling down my cheeks and she keeps kissing me.
I mean she’s like Notebook kissing me.
And I’m the girl.
Well she’s the girl too but I’m the girl and it’s both just…
And I’m just.
We kissed that long that some of the other patients there that were like aware enough to watch are clapping and stuff and we’re even getting that arms crossed oh look they’re so sweet thing from the staff.
I’m blushing.
I look at Marlene and she looks at me. I take a breath and say. “I want to come home; I want to be with you. I want this…I want to be your girl…”
Marlene laces her fingers in with mine. “I don’t care if you’re Mike or Jen as long as you’re with me. Man, woman it doesn’t matter if you painted yourself purple and shaved your head I’d still love you.”
We kiss again but it’s not anywhere near as long and we break it and head over to mom who’s setting up the food she brought at the table and we’re still holding hands fingers interlaced and she seems better…like getting it out there helped her be here.
Or maybe it’s me?
Sigh that’d be nice.
We sit and we move our chairs really close together as mom passes out the take out Chinese food. They’re spoiling me since I love Chinese food I could and have eaten it two or three times a week. I’m not a salad girl but given me some vegetable chow mien and I’m a happy girl.
I can’t help but smile and lean over and kiss Marlene once more before my face is stuffed with food. Five days since I’ve woken up in the hospital…five days and so much is changed already and for the better.
You know I can’t remember the last time I felt there was hope in my future?
We kiss and break apart. “Marlene what is that smell?”
“My second job, I’m making candles at the mall.
“Second job? Candles?”
“For Christmas all handmade wisdom candles. They have like spices and stuff in them. I kind of reek of Myrrh.”
“You know that’s one of the three gifts right?”
She nods and dips a fried wonton into the cherry sauce.
“Mom brought me some frankincense the other day.”
She looks at mom who shrugs.
I supply. “In the form of kohl cosmetics. Apparently it was eye make-up.”
She smiles and looks at me. “Well I’m only bearing myself and the only thing that I’m wise about is how much I love you.”
Mom dishes me out some chicken soo-guy and looks at both of us.
“Loving each other, really loving each other and hanging on no matter what happens is what real wisdom is all about girls. It’s the real treasure to have.”
I reach over and so does Marlene and we link hands again and beam at each other.
(Happy-sniffle.) “Yeah Mom, yeah it is.”
I can do this, I can really do this get better, get out of here and really, really finally get started on my life.
Soon…I’ll be me soon; I’ll be coming home soon.