New Decade Again

Prologue

It's a start of a new year, and a new me. I felt ten years younger than I was yesterday. I opened my eyes and saw the bedroom had changed to what it was before it got a makeover, with different shades of paint. The posters of the music bands I followed before were back on the walls. The units were littered with clothes, make up and glasses filled with drink. No. This was pretty different than it was before.

As I pulled over my duvet, my body was slimmer, softer and younger. I glided my hands over my body and noticed the proportions were different. My hips were bigger, and my breasts were firm and heavy. It was hard to see the differences with the strands of hair over my face. Even worse when it was not long enough to keep them behind my back.

I rolled my bum off the mattress and walked over to one of the available mirrors. It was a small round vanity mirror. I used my small hand to rotate towards my face, which then reflected my soft cheeks. I flinched. I stood back with laboured breaths. The shock at the sight of the difference of my facial features.

My heart beaten as I strolled into the bathroom of the house. As I flicked the light on, I saw a different person on the mirror. I obviously looked younger. I could see that I might be a teenager again. I was sixteen a decade ago and I was at college somewhere in Wales. Though I was pretty sure this was not that similar to what I looked like that time around.

I went downstairs and saw my mum was brewing a few mugs of tea. It was easy to know that a new year's day meant they can relax in bed. They have a TV in their room, whereas I don't. Hard to imagine that smartphones were fairly new at this age.

My mum turned around to see me. "Morning Jess, and happy new year."

"Morning...mum" I stuttered a bit. Then a weird thing just hit me. Jess? That's my new name? Even weirder that my mum shown no hesitation in her voice when she called me Jess.

Her arms were relaxed and capable of taking both teas from the room. "Help yourself to some breakfast" She pecked me on the cheek. "We have some leftovers for lunch. But there's a lot of cleaning to do today!"

She was not wrong. The dining room had a lot of strands of confetti and pieces of card flung over the the furniture. The table had a few trays of party food. Although I had no clue what it was more disgusting, the half-eaten pieces of food, or the bits of trash that lined over some of them? Hopefully I would not have to clean all that crap up.

The biggest difference in the past hour, was me. I am a different person, but I am already accepted by my mother as her daughter. Life actually felt normal, but my insides beg to remind me that it was not the same as it was ten years ago.

My last memory was of me in the flat, drinking my sorrows away on my own. I kept complaining that I did not want to be 'me' and want to turn back time. But then, a strange figure came over to me and offered to reset the last ten years of my life. The biggest caveat is I had to possess a different body.

It was a choice where I either had to continue to plow through the sorrows and failures of my old miserable life, or start a fresh new life. I looked at the bottle and swished to see the bittersweet fluids splashing around. It was no longer great to have them in my body, for it was poisoned beyond cure. So I accepted the deal.

The only thing I had to do was for me to go to bed before midnight for the magic to work. I went between the tattered sheets on my own. I closed my eyes. My ears were still rung by the soft noises of the outside. The silly drunken groups signing songs. The cabs flying around the roads. The pains of life I tried to sleep away from. But as soon as the fireworks exploded in the sky at midnight, life faded.

I am now Jess. In the same dysfunctional family. In the same house where I spent my entire childhood in. The real question is not what I do differently, rather what I am doing differently?