*Before…

I’m worn out and that just sort of reminded me of everything she/I’ve been through and now everything is catching up with me hard and I’m more than welcome for the small cup of tea along with the meds.

I know there’s a tranquilizer in there but I’m happy to take them all.

I need the sleep and need to get better.

I already know I need my family.

I found a huge missing part of me and I’m going to work hard to have it, to have my second chance.

I got dressed in the scrub like outfit they gave me and the utility panties and crawled into the bed in my room.

I’ve slept on worse.

The pills are kicking in along with everything else and out of nowhere it just bubbles up and out of me as I turn off the lamp.

“Tucker….Thomas… Josh….I love you, I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

*And Now…

With everything that happened, that has happened I slept actually very good.

But not without misadventures in womanhood.

Getting literal mouthfuls of my own hair and at one point face wrapped.

Or rolling over to the waking ow of pinning and squeezing my breast into the bed and against my body weight when I rolled over wrong.

And of course going to the bathroom which was still something that was strange. It wasn’t that of my it’s so magical a thing like some people might say that it is but it’s strange in how it comes out and how that feels and it is very different.

Not freaky just different.

Peeing is peeing.

And I am more than well acquainted with how to wipe myself dry so as not to get UTIs.

Being trans, being trans woman even a closeted one you learn a lot about the kind of person that you were denied being by fate or some accident of birth.

Or god.

And knowing they’re real...well that doesn’t phase me too much.

I always sort of knew.

And I know that me getting mad and asking why in a world as vast as ours and everything else isn’t going to solve anything. It’s so much bigger than me really and that’s where I’m going to try and keep it. I am grateful for this chance and I’m going to try and do better with it.

But aside from all of that I did sleep.

And that’s part from the sedatives and just partly because I’m both physically hurt and exhausted.

They let me sleep until breakfast comes and that wakes me up and the food is a little better.

I don’t mind cream of wheat.

It’s not grits, but I really don’t think that taylor has eaten too many grits either.

The toast was the worst. They used one of those refrigerated majorines and they get water in them or it’s whipped into them to make them spreadable. Either way my decent whole wheat toast is wet and soggy.

I did get a soft boiled egg and that’s something that I haven’t had in a long time.

Then I get a visit with Dr. Smith and I get taken to her in section office/therapy room and then we get started once I’m comfortable with a thousand questions.

A lot of it is stuff that Taylor should know and some is general questions like what day it is, what city we’re in, my address, who is president. So likely some sort of amnesia protocols as well.

Some things I honestly don’t know like who I voted for. I don’t even know if I even voted.

I know what’s going on with the questions and she’s not being anywhere near as pushy as she could be or like others will be about all of this.

And I answer things honestly and best that I’m able to.

I think some of my answers are pretty different from what information she has on me or what people have told her about me.

If anything she looks a little curious and on the edge of perplexed.

“Taylor I think that’s good for today, I’ve some workbooks and things for you to try and if you’re up to it some basic testing if you’re good with it?”

“Just stuff to see where you’re at with the world.”

“So competency tests.”

She chuckles. “Yes honestly, I wasn’t expecting your answers.”

“That bad?”

“That different, now honestly I don’t know what to expect with things that you’re going to come out with in the answers.”

“Barring watching TV in the common room I can’t see myself have much else to do.”

“You have to do them in the other room, it’s not a good idea to have pens or pencils out in the common room.”

“That’s fine, a coffee and using the bathroom and I’m good.”

“I thought that you drank tea.”

“I drink both honestly. I’m just not that much of a pop drinker.”

“Oh well I’m that same way.”

“Though decaf please, I’m breastfeeding.”

“That’s not a problem, decaf is pretty much nursing gear around here.”

“Really?”

“We treat addiction here too and people need their coffee even if it’s decaf. We try and not let a lot of stimulants out with the general patients. Some people don’t need to get that wound up.”

Dr. Smith gets me a coffee and she settles me into the observation room with the mirror and everything that is used for observing patients and mostly for children and such and I get settled in and she leaves me there for a little while while she goes and get a box of workbooks.

Some of it looks like some sort of basic psychology stuff and some of it for children maybe but different than just regular children’s workbooks and then it moved onto something that looked sort of like those standardized high school tests but again different.

It is something to do and to keep my mind busy while I’m waiting for Josh to show back up and hopefully bring the boys.

I get lost a little while in the thought of them and the memory of being with them from yesterday and that warms me inside and helps a lot.

And it also definitely triggers my body’s instincts and I start to sort of itch and then ache and then ache some more and before I realize it I’m leaking.

I go to the door and call for one of the nurses. “Excuse me a little help here please?”

One of them comes over and I get a break from the workbooks and taken to my room where they get me a breast pump and I start taking the pressure off.

I don’t want to say surreal again but there is this whole deeply right and yet beyond everything feeling as I’m pumping milk from myself and feeling it, feeling all of it and watching it too.

God even if it’s silicone and plastic the act of pumping is just so incredibly deep and personal.

And here’s the thing.

I have never ever been blessed to feel this before but it feels entirely right.

It does give me another chance to really get another bit of time with myself. And as much as there is feeling right there’s also getting to really take the time to get to know myself as Taylor.

I don’t know if what I’m doing is right or normal...is there a normal in this situation?

I just breathe, I close my eyes and feel myself and breathe, let all the weight and curve and even just my bones speak to me.

Hell I don’t even know if there was a point to it but I sort of felt more settled and centered after doing that.

I fill my containers and I try and express more or what’s stored up into the towel that I’m using just so I have a little longer between leaking moments and then I put on a new scrub top/patient top on and call for the nurse and we clean out the pump and she stores it and we put the milk into one of the mini fridges they have there at the nursing station.

And then it’s another coffee and me finishing the tests and booklets that Dr. Smith gave me.

Nothing is that hard really and like I said before it’s competency based sort of things and it’s actually interesting filling in the answers in the booklets. It’s like those school standardized tests only the word problems lean heavily into ethics and morality issues.

It’s not all that heavy either. It’s not like college discourse but really basic right and wrong things and some hard stumpers where there is no right answer and it’s likely more about what you wrote down and what that says.

It’s actually good for me I think too.

I answer most of it just fine but some of it like the situational stuff I think about and don’t try and answer things as Taylor like she was or even as the old me but who I can be now.

I had this whole list of things built into non transitioning me that was things like I shouldn’t, I can’t, I don’t dare….there are things now that are just never going to be a factor anymore like that.

I’m finished and sipping at my lukewarm coffee when Dr. Smith comes back in and has a smile. “You have a phone call.” and she passes me a cordless phone.

“Who is it?”

“Your husband.”

I take the phone and smile at her as she takes the booklets back.

“Morning Josh how’d you boys make out last night?”

“Uhm…..good, we’ve been at my folks place with everything so that helps.”

“Oh, okay...is...is the house that bad?”

“Yeah sort of it needs some work.”

“Sorry.”

“No, no I should have been home more.”

“Someone has to work Josh and you don’t need to feel guilty about it.”

“Taylor….”

“It’s true.”

“I know but I want to be there...I want to be present.”

“And you were, I might have been trying to fake it until I made it or something. You could see this coming.”

Dr. Smith is looking at me.

I smile, I know that’s getting written down.

Josh sighs over the phone. “Okay, so….”

“I get help, I think we get help.”

Dr, Smith is nodding.

“We can do that babe.”

“Do you call me that often?”

“What?”

“Babe.”

“You don’t like it?”

“No, I don’t mind it. Not at all I just don’t have any references J.”

“J?”

“Just trying something out.”

“Yeah you never did that before.”

“Do you mind it?”

“No, it’s kinda nice.”

“Nice is good.”

I can hear the smile in his voice. “What are you doing today?”

“Getting ready to come see you.”

“I’d like that.”

“We’ll be there soon.”

“Love you.”

“...........Love you too Babe.”

We hang up and Dr. Smith is looking at me. “You are committed to getting better, you and Josh.”

“We’re married, I can’t do this alone. And I don’t remember stuff so I literally need him too.”

“There’s likely some bad things that’s going on there in your past.”

“I know, healthy people don’t do what I did.”

“You’re really aware of that.”

“Josh told me I killed people.”

“You did, you killed Daniel but the accident spiralled and two other people died in the pile up.”

“Oh…” I sat down.

“Are you alright?”

“No, I’m definitely not...how can I…?”

And I mean that too.

How can I be going on or moving on and have all of this going on with Taylor’s victims?

“But you don’t remember do you?”

“No, I don’t, I don’t even remember my life.”

She sits next to me and holds my hand. “It will be hard, there’s people that want answers even justice but we can only do what we can do Taylor and that’s get you accessed and better.”

I sigh. “I hope that you’re right.”

She nods. “We can only try out best.”

We actually just sit there for a while and it’s a comfort but she gets called away and the nurse takes me to my room and asks if I need anything and I really don’t. “No just some sleep maybe.”

I take a nap until Josh comes thinking about what Taylor did and the consequences of all of it and all I can do, should try to do if I’m allowed.

It’s not much of a nap or rest laying there living in my head and thankfully I’m rescued from it by Josh arriving with the boys and his parents.

The nurse comes and gets me and takes me to the monitored visitors room and as bad as everything was turning out seeing Josh made me smile some and seeing the boys just lit me up.

I can’t help it but they do and while things are still very off and strange with his parents there and whatever had been between us they are trying to be nice to me.

And apparently I’m allowed outside food so Josh brought me a burger and fries.

He’s watching me as I go between tearing into the food and cooing and playing with Tucker and Thomas.

“I haven’t watched you eat for awhile y’know.”

“Why?”

“I think you were embarrassed by gaining weight.”

“Oh...wow, I don’t remember all of that.”

His mom nodded. “I think that the last few months you really found it hard.”

“God I should have asked for help.”

His dad looked at me. “You’ve never been that kind of person Taylor.”

“What kind of person was I?”

“Honestly?”

“Self centered, I get that you tried Taylor but you we’re happy out here slumming.”

“Then why did I stay?”

Josh gave his dad a hard look. “You said we’d get through all of this.”

His mom says. “I think you were very intent on defying your parents.”

I nod as I play with the boy’s fingers in the stroller. “I don’t remember but things Josh said were that my folks are very controlling.”

Josh’s dad snorts. “Your father thinks he can order the weather to change, your mother thinks that she can order him.”

That makes me laugh.

Which has them staring at me again.

I look at them. “Sorry I had this whole image in my head.”

Josh asks. “You think it was your parents.”

I shake my head no. “No more like seeing those rich people like on TV.”

He nods smiling. “Well honestly your dad’s a lot like the guy that tried to sell out the ski lodge out from under everyone in those nineties movies.”

I laugh again and reach out and take his hand and pull him to the floor with me in front of the kids and we just play with them.

And kiss, like twice but we kiss.

In front of his parents and the kids.

I know I’m different than the Taylor I know, I know there will be a long hard climb up into my life but right now, sitting here it’s already worth it.