*Before…

“It’s a choice, one way or another it’s a little less uncertainty and hard choices that you took away from hanging over you.”

So after that week she talked to the courthouse and some other people and I am getting a weekend pass to got home. I don’t have to wear anything, the judge said I’m not that kind of offender and with my family and everything I’m not really a flight risk.

So...so this weekend I am going home.

And really stepping into her life.

I’m scared to death and I want this so bad all at the same time.

*And Now…

The simple feeling of getting in his car with him and driving someplace else just picked me up immensely.

One, we have a nice car.

It’s not the one I wrecked obviously but I think it might be the replacement and it’s a Buick and Emcore and it is a nice grown up kind of car.

The drive is strange as I’m not driving and it’s strange not being the one driving but getting into the car was… it was different, like very different given that I’m a lot smaller and my balance is different.

But it's really good, and really, really different. Climbing in, the way that my body moves and even closing the door is different, everything is bigger and heavier.

But like I said, it's really good.

And driving through town into my life is different too. It’s kind of surreal as I’m still in the same town as I was living in when I was still alive and in my other life.

But this sort of hammers home just how different a life.

Different main roads and highway exits and then a whole other overpass exit and then I’m in a neighborhood that I might have only vaguely known was here.

He’s looking at me as we’re driving and I’m taking things in.

“You’re really not remembering any of this?”

“No, nothing.”

He nods quietly to himself and then there’s a bit of a sigh. “Okay well until we move I’m going to show you where things are and maybe even some of the people that you might need to know.”

“That’d help.”

We…We have a lot of places that we go to for more things than what I ever needed.

Our usual grocery places first then the Farmers market area at the park and the play area and mom’s area at the park and after that my Yoga place, the gym, our coffee place and our green tea and juice place and it kind of goes on like that for a bit around these suburbs.

We’re definitely suburban high bracket middle class or we were living like it.

Then we went home.

And home was very much in the suburbs and while nice it looked, manicured and controlled.

It reeked of those places ruled by a homeowners association.

I like our house, it’s older but it is like 90’s art design home in brick with a second story in the back half and that have a whole side of modern but spaced long rectangular windows in the front facing the street.

We have a concrete front step and there’s planets flowers along the edges of the driveway and the walkways and we have a garage which we pull into. Well we back into it and as we’re doing that I can see three neighbors suddenly outside doing things.

It’s a little expected.

It’s kind of definitely unwanted especially as a man I was pretty independent and kept a nice place because that was just me. The idea of people telling me what to do with my place is really repellant.

Going into the house is really unfamiliar and we do that from the inside door to the garage and the house is dead.

And I mean that.

He’s just staying here part time I already know that much but the house itself seems to be decorated and balanced like some sort of Instagram collection like she made it to be sharable online and like she was doing oh-so-well.

It’s lived at.

Not lived in.

It is a nice house don’t get me wrong and she kept things clean but she…I don’t think that she really did much of anything in order for it to not look good or near it’s best.

There not being a TV in the main living room is a dead giveaway to me.

Yes I know there’s loads of people that don’t like TV or have a use for TV but at the same time where is the settling in together, the watching movies or eating take out sitting on the carpets and pulling the coffee table close.

He shows me around and I look around and take my few things to our room and that’s semi lived in and I can see a separation in Josh and myself there but also in the whole public me vs the reality of mom of twins me.

She was not handling this well.

I have my outdoor life fancy clothes more or less set aside from everything else and everything else was this whole no life or want to live sort of raw mess.

I know messy people, Dan’s family had loads of messy people and this was different.

I’m a vet.

I have seen friends hit the wall, crash hard after getting home either from things that were done or the fact that once you’re in for awhile you lean on the routine.

Seeing brothers and sisters in uniform like this is a common thing for anyone in long enough.

I can recognize depression when I see it.

It might be caused by something else but it still smells the same.

And after Josh goes and takes a few calls I really look around.

I found bottles, half pints and pints of semi-hard stuff and shot bottles and then there were the pills.

Depression, for sure loads of Gravol and off brandGravol at that. Too many and you’ll get hit with the drowsies.

Uninsured welfare Ambien.

And there was that too.

I find all of it in the usual addict and alcoholic places and garbage the bottles into the recycling as well as wrecked clothes.

She took something sharp like a box cutter to the clothes she had that she couldn’t fit into.

She didn’t try and lose the weight or give them to charities or anything like that; she just went off the rails in that spiral sort of way.

Josh was done his calls and he ends up watching me as I go on a cleaning jag and not just doing housework but going through everything and seriously trying to scrub off the toxic vibes here.

Though at one point he looked at me when I took an old quilt from the linen closet and put it in the dryer to get the sitting there too long smell and then put it on our couch.

“You’re covering the couch?”

“We don’t use the couch do we?”

“We usually don’t no, not a lot.”

“I want to watch a movie with you tonight or something and order in Chinese food and just binge and be okay.”

“Okay… you sure?”

“I want to live in our house not live at my house.”

“Huh?”

I smiled and actually went over and kissed him. “You, my dear husband need more than just a place to crash and your so called office nook.”

“I thought we were moving?”

“We have to organise all of that first I want to actually live with you while we’re doing that.”

I kissed him again and he kissed me again too and he got even more into it and his hands started roaming and I didn’t just go with it but I leaned into him and his touch and everything else like I was as touch and intimately starved as I really was inside.

His parents had the twins until tomorrow.

We kissed and felt each other up until I was well and truly hot and aching as well as more wet than my mind was really trying to handle.

I loved all of it too.

Not just me with a guy, with a man thing.

But passion and intimacy.

Real connection with his touch like he knows my body better than I do and he is so strong as well.

I loved that power, that strength, the squeezes, that being on the right side of this as we had sex on the couch and the newly placed quilt and I took top even.

It felt right, it of course felt like more, but it felt right even though I could have only imagined and agonised over this before in my old life.

I even didn’t mind and was fine with the leaking and the breast milk and sex things and well that sort of stuff was going to happen when you had kids.

And it was good sex.

It was sex half naked in the first go around and that was that sex where only our fun bits were mostly exposed as we were making out and so horny that sex turned into being more important that getting fully naked.

Then it was us actually getting fully naked.

And me going down on him and while getting him ready with a blow job was something he said I hadn’t done in ages he enjoyed it so much that I really got into it and it honestly was a fight between finishing him like that or straddling him again.

We ended up going hard for three times in a row.

We were tired, sticky and sweaty and we took our clothes upstairs and the quilt and put them in the wash after we took a long soap-suds filled shower together and I spent the rest of the day in one of his football fan tee shirts and underpants.

We ended up putting a new quilt on the couch and we ordered pizza and we watched the crime show White Collar together on Disney plus actually cuddling and necking and bingeing the whole first season together before crashing and going to bed together.

I was actually excited when his mom brought the kids home and I asked her to help me make the nursery more of a place for them and us.

It’s not much but I want a new start with them.

And stuff in there for Josh too, like us actually muscling in a used Layz-boy recliner chair in there for him to chill out with the kids when he’s feeding them or getting them to sleep.

I think I surprised him when I asked him to make a playlist of songs that he wants to listen to with the twins and that maybe he if he wanted to he could read some of his fantasy novels to them instead of just the kiddie books.

“You want me to read Lord of The Rings to them?”

I kissed him sweetly. “Yes, because at their age they retain you reading to them more than the stuff said and I’d rather them have a head start with some good vocabulary than that scary babbly baby tv show talk.”

I started working out too.

I do it in front of the nosey neighbors too, mostly out of spite because I don’t like them. And most of them are women that look like everything is their business and what I do must be watched for that keeping up with the Jones’s thing.

I have this entire feeling based on their dirty looks that some of them were bullying Taylor/Me and helped push her into that dark place.

I will unfold the playpen once Josh goes off to work in the garage and I will put on just enough music to work out by and I will do jump rope and the little pink hand weights but I will also use our bow flex machine and I will use our exercise bike.

My favorite is working out with the boys and taking them from the playpen one by one and lying on a foam workout map and using the baby in forward arm lifts down as far as I can then up as high as i can and side to side and then bent arm curls with them and crunches like a little medicine ball boy I do reps of twenty with each exercise and child and then I switch out.

It’s bonding things too, I count with them, I laugh with them when they giggle or burst into just being happy because kids like being lifted and having fun and honestly that sound from my sons is literally healing.

I swear there is a real actual energy that is involved in being a parent and I am pulling being a mom into myself like a desert getting rain.

And I run.

I get one of those big strollers with the double seats and the sun guards and the big running tires and the baskets and I’ll go to the store in our workout gear and a backpack and I’ll grab things we need at the house like milk or eggs and a few other odds and ends and I will run those errands pretty much literally.

I like running,I know how to run.

I also am not afraid to run and get just drenched in sweat and not being scared to put in the work and the miles.

I am breastfeeding my kids and I’m connecting more and more with that, being able to do that and to feel that. I like the feeling and not just the relief but like some part of me really deep down like that part of me that figured out that I was trans is like nodding inside of me.

It feels that right, that normal.

I eat too.

I’m feeding the kids but more than that Taylor just honestly didn’t take good care of herself. Either didn’t know how to or wanted too but taking care of yourself is another weapon that helps us in those black spirals.

I drop the booze which was court ordered anyway but I do water and yogurt or a smoothie in the mornings and sometimes granola and usually something like blueberries or a banana and lunch is something like a really good sandwich or like a piece of fish or chicken and a small salad.

I take vitamins too as well just to actually help get actually healthy all while looking for our new house and for something to do for me. Asit is I am taking French and Spanish online and talking and practising with the kids. I am trying to teach myself how to paint and have finally seen episodes of Bob Ross for the first time in my two lives. I’m not good at it but I still want to try.

Saturday is Grandparents day where Josh and I and his parents agreed that we need help and that one day a week if they could would be time well invested for them but also for us as well.

Sometimes they come on Friday evenings and sometimes they’ll ask for them the whole weekend.

And then we found a place.

Or it found us.

It’s an old couple's house that Josh’s parents knew and they sold to us after the husband had a sudden heart attack and their kids were moving them into assisted seniors.

It’s nine blocks from his parents place and that means a lot to us now.

Taylor’s parents are still no shows, nothing on messages or social media or even snail mail.

So I’m leaning on them and I’m open about it, I’m open about it because being isolated led to all of this.

We moved in but we also helped them move out and sort their things and we’re really good neighbors about helping them and I’m good with all of the things that we have to do with the place.

It’s a nice place.

It’s in older suburbs in his old area but it has big trees in the sidewalk divide out front and we have nice big maples in our front yard and it’s a two story house in that kind of blocky cape cod style but there is an separate garage but it is two stories and the top is a loft and the driveway is paved and in good shape and will be a great place for us to put up a basketball hoop or street hockey nets in the future and have enough room for their little bikes

It needs work but I love that it does.

I have plans of Josh and I and his folks doing things as a family.

BBQ’s and tunes and fixing the deck or putting up the fence, and I do want a yard fence, I want painting the room days and to build memories here.

We love it, it’s going to be a lot of work but we love it.

Josh landed a job with a non profit once he was sure that I was good with him not chasing the big money lawyer thing. He helps veterans and LGBT+ people and other minorities look at legal shortcuts and bonuses and programs to help them with small businesses. It’s actually needed work as most people don’t know or have access to things that are out there to help from other programs and charities and grants as well as things on a Federal and State level.

Josh looks for all of those things and what can be done and helps them do the paperwork and navigate the government red tape so people that already are getting the brown and smelly end of the stick don’t just get mad or frustrated and quit or give up.

And my god there are a lot of people in need of that help and to have someone help them through all of the stuff.

We set him up with an office in the garage so he can do some work from home and with the plumbing and wiring being checked and passing it was just upgrading the min box and a more efficient water heater and then it’s me stripping the place down one room at a time before we redo them.

And I cook.

I started cooking and I’m not a bad cook, better than what she was since she tended to get ready made or frozen.

I’m not an over the top wife mom in that.

Mac and cheese with a layer of broccoli and cauliflower, Baked beans with ham, chicken stews, beef stews, roasts, baked potatoes and steamed veggies, chilli and yeah I will get us take out too but I have that on “Our” Night and it’s be things out of the box like Thai or Korean food or something Caribbean.

Then I got a shock.

Part of my deal is seeing a therapist and I need to do lab work to screen for drugs or excessive alcohol use.

And, I had not even thought about birth control.

So it turns out that I’m pregnant.