In Reverse, Part 8

I've been spending as much time as possible outside, trying to squeeze in as much play time as a seven-year-old as possible. Unless something drastic happens soon, I won't be able to run and play like I have been much longer. In fact, I realized that I'm already younger than seven. It hit me when I thought about when my kids were young. They often added fractions to their ages, the most recent being Tommy. He wasn't just five; he was five and a half. Since I'm going backwards, I'm probably six and a half now and rapidly approaching six.

Speaking of Tommy, it's really weird to be looking up at my youngest child. I mean, I knew that might happen some day but not when Thomas was still a kid! Yet here I am, a few inches shorter than him and noticeably smaller. He can pick me up with ease, although he doesn't make a habit out of it, thankfully. Every time someone picks me up, I feel like I'm getting a preview of my future when I might be too young to walk or even stand on my own, dependent on others to move me from place to place.

One thing that I don't think is very clear from this journal is that I'm not just a man living in a child's body. I'm also living in a child's brain. It's getting harder to write these entries as it gets harder to focus and to remember words I've known for years. My brain just isn't as big as it used to be, so it can't hold as much information as it used to. But it's important to me, the scientific community, and maybe my kids to write down my thoughts as I regress. This has never happened to anyone before, and I may not come back from it. If they can't find a way to stop my regression, I'll just keep going until I become a single cell. They think at that point, I would split into an egg and a sperm, and then the two would die unless they were frozen. But what then? Would the egg and sperm continue to regress, or could they be recombined to start me growing again? Either way, I'll essentially be dead by then because I won't have a brain, a heart, or any other vital organs. I could develop into a completely different person. This has all been explained to me the last few weeks to prepare me for it in case it happens. It's absolutely terrifying to think of that happening to me, that I could become something small enough to keep in a test tube.

My bedwetting has continued with only two dry nights since I last wrote about the problem, and those two nights weren't one after the other and were a few days ago. And I was right about the "something else" Ethan talked about. He brought home a package of Goodnites this afternoon and gave it to me a little bit before my bedtime. I couldn't stop myself from crying. Ethan consoled me, rubbing my back and assuring me he wasn't mad or upset at me. Of course, that made me feel even smaller, but I melted into his arms and cried on his shoulder. After a few minutes, he talked me into taking one out of the package and trying it on, but he gave me some privacy to do it. I'm wearing it right now, and it feels really weird, thick and stiff. It's not very uncomfortable, just embarrassing, a constant reminder of my status and weakness. I hate it. I hate what's happening to me. I wish I'd never taken that serum.

As embarrassing as it is, the Goodnite did its job. It was wet when I woke up this morning, but everything else was dry. As much as I hate wearing the damn thing, I have to admit it's nice to sleep through the night and wake up in dry sheets again. I took a quick shower before breakfast this morning and washed off all the pee. I guess that will be my new routine from now on. I just hope something happens before I get any younger and need something more than Goodnites. The lab told me today that I'm now six years old, and they think they're finally onto something that might save me, although it's a little over my head at this point. They hope to have it ready in the next several days.

In the meantime, I'm catching myself swinging my legs when I sit in a chair, and I find some of the simplest, silliest things funny. I guess that's the fun part of all this, being more easily entertained. Ethan sometimes rolls his eyes at me, though, but I've noticed Sophie giving me what I recognize as the "Aww, how cute" smile, and Thomas often ends up laughing at me laughing at things. I sometimes get in trouble being so distracted so easy. Not, like, bad trouble, but sometimes Ethan has to remind me of what I'm supposed to be doing.

I've been having more nightmares, or at least the ones I'm having are scaring me more. I had a really bad one last night, and I was so scared I climbed into Tommy's bed, which is closest to my room. Me and him are still close, and he's gotten to be really protective of me, so it makes sense I'd run to him for comfort. Unfortunately, he found out about my bedwetting when he heard my Goodnite crinkling and recognized the sound.

"Are you wearing Goodnites, Mikey?"

"Yeah. I've been having accidents, and Ethan said I should wear them to bed now."

"It's okay. Accidents happen, and lots of kids have them." His voice was soft and soothing, exactly as it should have been when addressing a young kid.

"I know. I just wish I didn't have them." A kid. He called me a kid.

"Yeah. I remember feeling like that when I used to wet the bed." A moment went by before he added, "You're still dry, though, right?"

I felt heat in my cheeks. "Yeah, I am."

"Okay. I just want to make sure you don't leak. Now, don't worry about bad dreams anymore. You're safe."

I felt safe, and in that moment, I forgot I was a grown man and drifted off as a little boy in his big brother's bed. Imagine my shame when I woke up this morning with that thought in my mind and a wet pull-up under my pajamas.

When Ethan took me to the lab, he parked the car. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was going to walk in with me.

I whined, "Do you have to?" I meant to ask if it was necessary, but I couldn't think of the words at the time.

"I'm afraid so, buddy. You've gotten to be distracted really easy lately, so I need to talk to the staff in case there's something I need to know. Plus, as little as you are now, I'm starting to worry about somebody snatching you up when nobody's looking.

I stared at the mat under my feet, remembering how I was driving my own car just a few weeks ago, and now I needed my son to protect me from child predators.

Just like the games and toys I like to play with, the kind of TV shows and movies I like has regressed with my mind. I've been watching a lot of Disney stuff and cartoons like that. Marvel superheroes too. I watched things like this as an adult too, but I wasn't as into them the same way. They really get my imagination going. That's one part of my return to childhood I'm enjoying. Grown-ups can't compete with the imagination of kids, and seeing how my imagination has grown since I've gotten younger has been amazing. If adults could find a way to get back that imagination and use it in their current lives, we could solve every problem in the world real fast. I told Dr. Wallace about this, and she was really interested. She had the team give me some tests to measure my creativity, and she says this creative rejuvenation could have some very important applications. She told me I might have done a really good thing for humanity and I should feel good about that, even if it caused me some problems. I do, but it also sucks having my former co-workers knowing that I wet the bed.

My renewed imagination factors heavily into my playtime now. I've taken to playing make-believe, usually as a superhero or a Jedi. That's embarrassing as I sit writing in my journal, organizing and recording my thoughts as a grown man living in a kid's body. But as a little boy who will soon regress to five years old, I make the most of that time, playing as much and as hard as I can. There's an old saying: youth is wasted on the young. But as a middle-aged man who's gotten young again, I can appreciate my energy and imagination better than an actual kid.

It's weird how I think of myself. Sometimes I have to remind myself I'm forty-six. Other times I have to remind myself of my new limitations. And then sometimes those reminders just come to me. I was playing outside with Tommy this afternoon when I got a very rude reminder. I tripped and fell to the ground, landing on my hands. I immediately started crying and wailing. The fact that Tommy was there made it even worse. Crying because of the pain was a reflex -- I couldn't help it -- but knowing he was seeing me crying because of the pain embarrassed me and upset me so I kept crying. He was a good big brother, though. He put his arm around me and told me everything was okay, consoling me until I felt better. I guess I raised him right, so at least there's that.

It's funny because a fall like that probably would have hurt even more in a middle-aged body, but I wouldn't have cried about it. Kids are very resilient. They don't weigh as much as adults, and they can bend and contort easier. But pain is a greater shock to kids than adults. Things hurt more and hurt longer when you grow up, but you can tolerate them better than you could as a kid. When you're young and you get hurt, there are tears for a few minutes and then everything's fine. That's a nice thought to distract myself from the painfully obvious fact that my emotions are also getting younger and there are probably a lot more tears in my near future.