Turn to Gold:
Sequel to Unknown to All

It’s Summer, it’s lovely.
Everything about it is amazing. Experiencing it for the first time in all its glory, that’s a tall order.
All I ever knew was the orphanage after I was put there.
For awhile, school was my refuge.
Even if I wasn’t allowed to interact with classmates, I was still one of them.

Having a family again is great, I’m starting to realize that I was living a hard life.
I’m learning things everyday that a lot of people take for granted.
I’m not embarrassed about who I am, nor am I sitting around wondering what could have been.

I am who I am now and I’m proud of it.

My family really is my lifeline now. My sister and I are very close. We share a lot of the same interests.

There’s one thing I still haven’t warmed up to yet though. I’m not sure if it’s really appropriate to say in a story like this but just know that night time is not a pleasant time for me since moving in with my family.
My sister and I, we love dancing. She takes classes for it but I’m not socially ready for that yet.

Everything I ever knew has been turned on its head.

It seems that things are looking up for me now.

Life is grand and I’m doing things that only a short time ago I would have only dreamed of.
I’m getting better with interacting with people and I’m finally starting to understand that how I used to interact with people didn’t make them want to be around me.

It’s been rough seeing my sister doing things I wish I could take part in. I know that this is still early on but all I want to do is spread my wings.
One of my big dreams is to someday be a cheerleader. I know it sounds rather unusual, but that’s just something I’ve always loved watching.

I feel whole for the first time in years. I have an actual family now. That’s not something I thought I’d ever end up saying again.
Life has been slow but steady with my new family as I start to learn more about all of them. They are a pretty active family in a lot of ways. They all do sports in someway.

I’m still getting used to the fact of having an older sister. Being an only child for most of your life and being put into this kind of situation makes for some interesting situations.

My older sister loves having another younger sibling in the house, even if I don’t really understand much of what is going on when we interact.

She hasn’t done anything crazy yet, the worst she’s done is put me in her arms and cuddled me like a baby.

As summer rolls on I start to feel comfortable enough to meet all of the extended family. It’s the end of June and we’re going to what I can only guess is one of my new grandparents. The drive there was quite long, but once we got there something felt off.

It took me a few minutes to get myself back to normal, after that we got out of the car.

As we walk up towards the house I start to wonder what they’re going to think of me. Will they love me or hate me?

As we get to the front door and it opens, I see two people who I could only assume were my new grandparents. My sister holds me tight as I take everything in.

They let me get my bearings first before doing anything. I look around the house I’m standing in and try to get a handle on things before I have a meltdown.

My sister sensed that I needed to be moved away and she took me to the opposite side of the house to one of the bedrooms.

She sits me down on the floor with her and just hugs me.

“It’s ok, I get it. You’re not a social person. All this was too much for you.”

I stay silent as we sit together in each other’s arms.

“It’s not a big deal, we just have to find a way to deal with this.”

I start to come down to earth again but not without some tears.

“Why am I like this?!”

“I don’t know, but we can work on it together. We have a cousin who has this problem too.”

I continue to sit while I come to terms with everything around me.

“I guess all this time being the way I was has taken its toll on me.”

“It’ll be fine, we can work together on this.”

I stand up with my sister and we hug each other for a few minutes.

“You going to be ok now?”

“I think so.”

“Ready to meet the family now?”

I nod and we make our way down to where everyone else is.

When everyone sees us they pause for a moment while my sister introduces everyone to me one by one.

All the family thinks I’m adorable but I’m not sure how I feel about being called that. It’s not a bad feeling but it’s not something I’m used to either.

After all the greetings and me meeting everyone, I start to warm up to this new environment I’m in.

My sister takes me outside to show me the rest of the place and I’m actually amazed at what I’m seeing.

“Wow, this is amazing….”

“It really is something isn’t it?”

As we’re walking around the property I start to take in everything that I’m seeing.

“I wish I would have been able to do something like this before now.”

“This is just the beginning, tonight will be a big step for you.”

“Tonight will be the decider for you. What happens tonight and how you respond will decide how things will go from here on forward.”

I look at her funny and she says:
“You’ll understand when the time comes, but for right now we have other things to attend to.”

As the day wore on, I started to enjoy this place we were staying at. The open air and the vast lands surrounding us really made me happy. I finally had a place to spread my wings and just be myself.

By the time we were getting ready to go out to dinner I had no idea what was going on with everyone getting dressed up the way they were. Then my sister comes to get me saying mom wants to help both of us get ready.

I take her hand and we go into the room that our mom was in. That was when I realized what was happening.

Mom saw the light bulb go off in my head and came over and said:

“We want you to have fun tonight, we want to help you with all this. All the family supports you here.”

“I know you’ve been wanting to do this for weeks now but we saved it til now for one very special reason.”

“I know your birthday was never very special to you before because of you losing your parents on your birthday. We want to change that sweetheart. You should be happy on your birthday, not in sorrow because of what happened.”

“I still blame myself for their deaths….. If I hadn’t been so stubborn this wouldn’t have happened…….”
I start bawling at that point and I just sat there crying my eyes out. I feel two sets of arms hugging me while I cry and I just let everything out that was built up inside.

It was during this moment that I found my heart had turned to Gold.
After my tears were over I was brought over to a stack of stuff laid out for me on the bed. I couldn’t actually believe that this was actually real.

After all these years I finally get to be the pretty little girl that had been stuck inside me all this time.
As each piece of my clothes changed, more of my true self was starting to show and by the end I was absolutely beaming.

When I saw myself for the first time I realized that I never was who I actually thought I was. The little girl in the mirror is the real me. The blue dress and the White tights, my hair up in a bun and my nails painted. This is who I really am.

I am a beautiful little girl and I’m oh so proud of it.