The "One" I've Been
Just the other day, I visited someone in the hospital on my way home from work. Upon arriving to her room, I saw that her parents were already there - flipping through TV channels and not really talking to their daughter, perhaps unsure of what to say to her. Slouched on the edge of a hospital bed, sullen, she stared at the floor. As I moved closer to sit beside her parents I saw she was anxious. Tremulous and unsteady. Confused. I knew what this was. This, though, wasn't like every time before. Now, she was older. 75 lbs. Five feet, 1 inch. Black sneakers that were at least 20 years old - surely dug out from one of her parents' closets at home. Black tights that let me know her legs could not have been much wider than my arms . A shirt that fit her as well as a garbage bag ever could. A jacket that hadn't been washed in who-knows-how-long, hanging off her shoulders because there was barely any body to cling to. Black hair thinned, matted and perhaps u