Time

Written March 2024

A door quietly opens into a dimly lit room, casting a warm orange light through the opening. Inside, a boy sat on the bed pushed against the wall. He looked up at the open door. A woman looks into the room; her hair, long and almost covering one of her eyes if not for her circular glasses, is the same color as his was; her eyes are the same color as his were, and they shared the same perpetual bags beneath them; their faces shared a shape. She wears black jeans, a green shirt, and a long brown cardigan; he wore a t-shirt and shorts, or perhaps a t-shirt, blue jeans, and a blue hoodie.

“Do you mind if I come in?” the woman at the door asks the boy. He nodded. She steps in, closing the door behind her, and walks over to the desk across from the boy’s bed. She pulls out the chair and sits on it backwards, facing the boy, and places her arms and head atop the back of the chair.

A moment of awkward silence is broken again by the woman. “Well, I would ask you how you’re doing, but… well, you know, haha,” she chuckles. The boy grinned and spoke, “Okay, then how are you doing?”

“Ah, well. Stressed, anxious, depressed, lonely, etc. Same old, same old.” She shrugs.

“Good to know nothing improves from where I’m at” the boy sighed, looking towards the floor.

The woman straightens up in the chair. “Now hold on, I didn’t say that! Things are infinitely better for us than back then. Life feels worth living more often than not, thanks to the fact that I feel like me now.”

“Oh, good. Good,” was the boy’s response. “So how has that… been going?”

“Great! Well, I’m not always moving at the pace that I would like, but I try not to get too caught up in that. But it’s really difficult, obviously. Making the decision to upheave all of who you were, all of who you thought you were, what you were, just for the possibility that a happier, more whole you lies at the end of it… it’s a lot. It’s no wonder that when faced with that possibility all those years ago, we rationalized our way out of it. It’s daunting, it’s scary. I often wonder…” The woman stares into the middle distance for a second before snapping her attention back to the boy in front of her. “Anyways! Sorry about that. It’s going pretty well!”

The boy hesitated, then asked, “How often do you think about… that day? When we were introduced to the possibility of being trans, when we rationalized our way out of it, when we were too scared to let ourself realize?”

“I…” the woman looks down to the floor. “…more often than I should. More often than is really healthy or productive. I’ll get caught in these spirals of ‘What if? What if? What if?’ when ultimately it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t help me be kind to myself, to not be mad at… at you, sometimes. Which I hate. I want to treat you with kindness. But sometimes I fail, and I’m sorry for that.”

“No!” the boy shouted, startling the woman. “No, you shouldn’t be sorry! If I had done something else, if I had realized back then, you would be in a completely different place! Your life would be entirely different! If I had—”

The woman places her hands on his shoulders. “Stop. You couldn’t have done anything differently. You’re treating yourself poorly, you’re treating us poorly. Yes, my life could have been completely different. But I wouldn’t want to change my current life that drastically. I have friends who love me, who I wouldn’t give up for anything. I am in a good place, all things considered. So please, don’t beat yourself up over something that is out of your control.”

The boy looked up at her for a moment, a shocked expression on his face. Then he hugged her. The woman is surprised for a moment, then returns the hug.

“I’m proud of you,” the boy said

“You’re proud of me?” the woman mutters incredulously.

The boy looked up into her eyes. “Yeah. And you should be proud of yourself too. You’ve grown a lot since you were me.”

The two continued to hug for a few moments more until the woman pulled away.

“Well, I should probably get going,” she says, moving towards the door.

As she opens the door to leave, she looks back at the boy. “See you later.”

“Seeya,” the boy responded, his gaze remaining on the door for several moments after she leaves.