It's strange, this new world I find myself in. It's like the same, but so different. So much of what I knew before is gone and so much new has come to take its place. I don't even know how to describe what I'm feeling. I try to express it with normal words, normal emotions, but how can words even exist for this?
My daughter who is posing as my sister works hard. I'd worry about her if it didn't make her uncomfortable. I wish she needed me, but it's I who need her.
It feels like all I do all day is sit around and watch TV. I'm getting restless. The programs intrigued me at first, but they're starting to get old now. So much is the same as before, and the stuff that's different I don't care for all that much. Practically speaking, it's good to know what's out there. I just feel like I've seen enough for now.
I can at least take walks now. Sarah's okay with that. It would be more strange if I was never seen, she says. This weekend we're even going shopping to get me my own wardrobe. I've been borrowing her clothes so far. My stuff was sold a long time ago, and it isn't "modern" enough anyway.
I do a little bit of reading, too. Sarah got me some books from the library. Fiction. I want something nice to take my mind off things. The TV reminds me of where I am more often than not. With the books, I can go back several years, to how it was before.
One thing that did make me smile was realizing there's still a box of toys here that Sarah had growing up. Some of them remember, but most of them were from after I was gone. It's sad seeing how she grew up without me, but it's nice, too, to know that she was okay. Or at least, that she was mostly okay.
Sarah still is okay. I'm the one that's not. I'm proud of who she is, who she's become, how she carried through. I don't know that I could have done it if I were her. A four year old losing her mother mysteriously, and almost losing her father too as he obsessed over finding the woman he loved?
Sarah told me how much Greg had loved me. He didn't want to stop looking for me, but he had to. Eventually there was no where else to look. That's where I was: no where. I'm glad he moved on, and I'm never going to tell him I'm here. Not ever. It's enough that Sarah has to deal with.
I don't know what happened to me and I don't know why. Sarah says she's glad I'm alive, but I wonder sometimes, in the dark, at night, if it would have been better if I had just stayed gone, if she had kept thinking I was dead. The best thing, of course, would have been if I had never gone. Sarah may be okay, but it was hard for her, and I don't know if she'll ever be great. If I had been there for her, then her life would have been so much better. I just wish I knew why this had happened, and why it happened to me. The how, I accept I'll never know that. I just wish that I knew why.
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It was hard enough having to lose mom once. The first time it happened, I was too young to really understand. It was more the aftermath that affected me. But now, here I am, right in the thick of it. And it's not like before. Not just because I'm older, but also because she didn't just vanish. This time, she was here, but unconscious.
Panic is an understatement. I don't think my heart as ever beat so loudly. When I called 9-1-1, I almost told them my mom needed help before I caught myself and remembered I had to claim she was my sister. They rushed her to the emergency room where the doctor managed to get her stable. He's hopeful. He thinks she might wake up. They haven't told me yet what's wrong with her.
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Tests, tests, and more tests. I've never been so studied before. I can't help but think that whatever is happening to me could have something to do with the fact that I apparently traveled 28 years through time, but I can't tell that to my doctor. He'd transfer me to the loony bin.
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The doctor comes back and talks to me. He looks somber. It isn't the best news, but there is hope. My mother has a brain tumor. It's terminal if left untreated. However, extremely promising treatments have been developed for this particular cancer in just the past five years. Survival rates for those who undergo this particular treatment regiment are over 80%. Ten years ago, this would have been a death sentence. Now she has a real shot.
I almost pass out when I hear all of this. Ten years ago? What about 28 years ago? My mother would have died within months of that fateful day she disappeared. And now, here is a doctor telling me she's probably going to live? This is crazy. Could this... could this be the reason she was transported into the future? Who did this? What is going on?
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