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whether it was conscious or not—If I had to conform, why shouldn’t you have to?
Making sure to avoid the dark, wet boulders, we’d explore for ages, spotting little creatures scurrying under the rocks. When the waves were large it was positively thrilling. They’d smash against the shore with magnificent force, rising high and reaching toward the famous lighthouse, moments turned to postcards.
The ruggedness, that intense, unforgiving beauty. How present my mother and I were in each other’s company. Our limbs stretching and reaching, feet searching for a spot to land, the salty, brisk chill of the Atlantic.
The sound of the little sled brushing the snow underneath, the steady glide through the barren landscape, offered tranquility, a sense of togetherness. Shut your eyes and you’re flying through the universe.
When his friends came over I stayed close, that annoying kid brother who tags along. I loved how they dressed, how they smelled. The way they removed their T-shirts, reaching back over their shoulders, grabbing the fabric and pulling it up over their heads, revealing a torso, a dangling chain.
escaped to my room, eager to go on a journey, an adventure of the imagination, which I found no less thrilling than a “real” adventure, if not more so. I had put on my blue Adidas tracksuit, a prized possession. It was zipped up to the very top that day, ready to go to a space where I could be exactly who I was. Nothing between me and the moment, no expectations, no performing, no eviscerating self-doubt.
How is that not me? I move like them; I play like them.
She put her arm around me as I recounted what had happened, the touch different from before.
Eleven was the age I sensed a shift from boy to girl without my consent.
It’s hard to explain gender dysphoria to people who don’t experience it. It’s an awful voice in the back of your head, you assume everyone else hears it, but they don’t.
We do not realize the extent of the energy we are losing until we find where it is seeping from.
Having Mo gave me a lot—routine, responsibility, walking, but primarily he expanded my heart. The care I feel is bottomless, a lesson learned from Mo. Without words he helped me, I began to offer some of that care for myself and to make the commitment to accept it.
wasn’t sure if I could be someone who lived in a cabin by themselves in the middle of the forest for months, but turns out, I very much am and it may be necessary in order for me to get to the bottom of my own brain. I had to be isolated, I had to not be something to someone or someone to something. I’d exhausted myself, trying with all of me to figure out what was wrong, running from one place to the next, fooling myself into thinking I could find it. But the answer was in the silence, the answer would only come when I chose to listen.
When the evening hit, the dark sky reached to the forest floor, complete silence other than a far-off truck making its way down a distant road.
