Birthday Quotes

“Maybe that's what life is about: surviving what you can't control and clinging to the good things the winds whip up.”
― Meredith Russo, Birthday

“I wonder if maybe I just can't cry anymore, if maybe growing up means testosterone is running through my body like an invading army, butchering and bunting everything tender.”
― Meredith Russo, Birthday

“More likely, and more complicated, is the thought that she’s just gone, and that this letter is the last part of her I’ll ever see or touch, and the only afterlife she or anyone ever gets is the ripples their lives make in the world around them—heaven in the hearts of those who live on, love branching out like roots in an old-growth forest.”
― Meredith Russo, Birthday

“If I were gay and I heard everyone around me constantly calling everything they don't like gay and yelling 'fag!' at the drop of a hat, maybe that would make it hard to come out even to people I care about.”
― Meredith Russo, Birthday

“I’ll be damned if that isn’t an addictive idea, being small with someone you trust.”
― Meredith Russo, Birthday

“And there she is.

I touch my jaw and she touches hers. I watch her lips part in awe and, for the first time in a long time, it’s not in a tight frown. She blinks slowly. I blink slowly. Because this is me.

All I can do is stare. At some point the stretched-out neckline of my ratty thrift-store shirt slipped off my shoulder. A strand of hair falls across my face. A girl who could be my sister stares back at me—it’s not even that I did a good job with the makeup, because I didn’t, but she’s there.

There’s a surge of vertigo as I realize this is what it’s like to bridge the gap between me-the-body and me-the-self. Or the start of it. It feels like waves are crashing in my ears, warm foam rising up to envelop me. I wrap my arms around my stomach and take a long, clean breath. And that’s really it—I feel clean for the first time in years.”
― Meredith Russo, Birthday

“A spark of electricity passes from me and into him, flooding out of my crowded heart and into his. I wonder what Morgan’s heart is like compared to mine. Empty isn’t the right word, though it’s the first that comes to mind. Minimalist. Maybe it’s more like yin and yang, like his heart is a dark, cool room after a hot, exhausting day.”
― Meredith Russo, Birthday

“I bury my face in the crook of his neck and laugh at nothing in particular, at how funny the world can be, at how weird it is that he’s a boy. How weird it is that he’s a boy.”
― Meredith Russo , Birthday

“not much is actually fun anymore.”
― Meredith Russo, Birthday

“the way my voice crackles between deep and normal breaks my heart.”
― Meredith Russo, Birthday

“I’m not made to connect to other human beings in that way, and I’m not sure I ever will.”
― Meredith Russo, Birthday

“finally I yell into the darkness: “Eric! I want to be a girl!” “All right!” Eric shouts.”
― Meredith Russo, Birthday

“es zertrampelt nur Autos und jagt mit seinem radioaktiven Hit-zestrahl Hochhäuser in die Luft. Was für ein schönes Leben.”
― Meredith Russo, Birthday

“Wherever I am, whatever else I'm doing, you're in my thoughts. Always. Whatever seeds you plant will have my eye on them. Whatever plants you make I'll cheer for you. Whatever kind of person you become, no matter how different from my daydreams, I will treasure you. No matter how lonely you ever have felt, I've been there, and no matter how dark things get as you grow older, I'll be there as well. You are my favourite person in the world and the thing I am proudest of.

Love you forever,
Mom”
― Meredith Russo, Birthday

“My thoughts drift to Mom and I wonder if I would have been able to tell her how I felt wrong in my own body, if she would have understood. Mom was sensitive, and soft-spoken, and always kind—even to people I could tell she didn’t like. I think she would have loved me no matter what.

I guess I’ll never know.

But I can hope.”
― Meredith Russo, Birthday

“I put one of my headphones back in, watch the road drift by, and try not to think about how Eric couldn’t hear me at the water park, and how my secret is still safe, and how Eric looked cute without a shirt on, and how I wish I didn’t even think that. It had been a mistake to think to tell him. I push the truth down. Bury it. Stick a grave marker on top. What’s one more year of life as a boy?”
― Meredith Russo, Birthday