A Different Life, A Different Story

Feilx - Roses

"Happy to you, Happy birthday to you," They sang as I pushed out a plastic smile.

Eleven, I was turning eleven and I couldn't look at myself in the mirror. I couldn't look at myself while taking a shower. I didn't feel like me.

"G-gramma? G-grampa?" I weakly said adjusting my girl's soccer shirt feeling as if I was the only person in the world who felt like this. The feeling of despair in my gut and all over my non-right body.

"What is it, Febe?" Gramma says as my heart pounded against my ribs.

Febe, what If I don't feel like a Febe, what If I feel like a...a...a--

"What is it, darling?" She persisted interrupting my thoughts.

I slowly said, trying to squeeze it all together in my eleven-year-old little brain, "I-I think- I I-I don't," they all look at me as tears streamed my face like a river of rain falling down a car window on a sad; gloomy day, " I don't feel like a girl."

I took them a moment to get it. The silence felt like an eternity until her gasp breaks the overwhelming silence like a bat swinging at a glass window. She gave me a hug, "I'm so proud of you, darling. My...grandson."

I smiled as I cried tears of joy. She said it! She said, son! She still loves me, I say to myself. As she gave me the tightest, most loving squeeze in the whole universe. The sun has arisen; awake and sunny.