Felix Ever After

I’m not flaunting anything. I’m just existing. This is me. I can’t hide myself. I can’t disappear. And even if I could, I don’t fucking want to. I have the same right to be here. I have the same right to exist.

It's easier, sometimes, to love when you know it's a love you can't have.

It can be easier, sometimes, to choose to love someone you know won't return your feelings. At least you know how that will end. It's easier to accept hurt and pain, sometimes, than love and acceptance. It's the real, loving relationships that can be the scariest.

It's easier to accept hurt and pain, sometimes, than love and acceptance.

I mean, I WANT to be in love. That’s something I’ve always wanted to feel. What’s it like, to be in love and have that other person love you, too? Is it another level of friendship? Another level of trust, vulnerability, always telling that person your thoughts and feelings, sharing every little thing with them so that you’re so in sync that it’s like you’re one person? Is it like every time you see them, your heart goes wild, and you can’t think because you’re so effing happy? Is it like whenever they’re away, you feel like you’re missing a piece of yourself? Does knowing someone loves you fill you with confidence, because you know you’re the type of person who deserves love? And what’s it like to break up with someone you love? What’s it like to decide to try again, and let yourself fall in love with someone else? To decide to take that chance you might get hurt, but still want to try? I don’t know. But I want to.

But, just because we loved each other, doesn't mean we were meant to be together. And just because you loved one, doesn't mean you can't love another.

Even if a creator made a character to be straight, they put those characters out into the world, right? So those characters are mine now. And I say that Steve and Bucky are gay as hell.

I see at least one thing a day that makes me wonder if the straight people are all right.

Do you ever feel like you’re only ever watching? I ask Declan. Never really participating. Never really doing. Just always watching.

I look at the moon, and I can’t help but think of everyone else on the planet who’s looking up at it, too, and how alone I am, even though we’re all here on the same Earth. I think about the fact that we should all be connected, but we’re not. We’re too preoccupied trying to hurt each other. It makes me think of how hypocritical I can be, and the mistakes I’ve made, and the ways I’ve hurt people, too.

No one else gets to define who I am. Only me.

It’s almost like I was looking for the pain and the hurt, because it was easier to live with the idea that, even though I want love, I’m not the kind of person who deserves to be loved.

It could've been easy to say I was hurt because I'm trans, because someone singled me out for my identity, but there's something weird about that - something off, about suggesting that my identity is the thing that brought me any sort of pain. It's the opposite. Being trans brings me love. It brings me happiness. It gives me power.

I want to be in love. I’ve never, you know—felt the kind of passion great artists talk about. I want that. I want to feel that level of intensity. Not everyone wants love. I get that, you know? But me—I want to fall in love and be broken up with and get pissed and grieve and fall in love all over again. I’ve never felt any of that. I’ve just been doing the same shit. Nothing new. Nothing exciting.

What does it feel like, to love someone so much that you’re willing to publicly bare your heart and soul with a black Sharpie?

For trans and nonbinary youth: You're beautiful. You're important. You're valid. You're perfect.

It’s like every identity I have . . . the more different I am from everyone else . . . the less interested people are. The less . . . lovable I feel, I guess. The love interests in books, or in movies or TV shows, are always white, cis, straight, blond hair, blue eyes. Chris Evans, Jennifer Lawrence. It becomes a little hard, I guess, to convince myself I deserve the kind of love you see on movie screens.

Just because you don’t understand my identity, doesn’t mean I’m not real. That I don’t exist.

It's easier, I think, to love someone you know won't love you - to chase them, knowing they won't feel the same way - than to love someone who might love you back. To risk loving each other and losing it all

What’s it like, to be in love and have that other person love you, too? Is it another level of friendship? Another level of trust, vulnerability, always telling that person your thoughts and feelings, sharing every little thing with them so that you’re so in sync that it’s like you’re one person? Is it like every time you see them, your heart goes wild, and you can’t think because you’re so effing happy? Is it like whenever they’re away, you feel like you’re missing a piece of yourself? Does knowing someone loves you fill you with confidence, because you know you’re the type of person who deserves love?

Yeah. I don’t know, I always feel like I can’t figure out how to just stop watching and actually join.

You’re not your grades. You’re not your test scores or your college application or even your portfolio.

I want to see what a new self-portrait would look like, after I've stood up for myself.

The longer I sit here and sketch, the better my art becomes; and it helps to look at the people around me, instead of seeing who I assume them to be.

Now that I know he’s Ezra’s new maybe-special friend, I pay a little more attention to him than I would have before. He kind of reminds me of a golden retriever, with his floppy blond hair and blue eyes. The first time I saw him in acrylics class, I kind of immediately hated the guy. He’s the sort of person the world adores, just based on the way he looks, a little like the way people obsess over men like Chris Hemsworth and Chris Evans and Chris Pine and all the other famous Chrises, plus Ryan Gosling, claiming that they’re liberal and that they aren’t racist and that they’re feminists, but not really thinking about why they’re so obsessed with white men, and why they don’t love any people of color the same way.

Second of all,” he says, “it doesn’t matter what they think. It only matters what you think. Do you think you’re worthy of respect and love?” My mouth is still open, but now, no sound comes out. “I think you are,” he tells me, still watching me—totally unashamed to be staring.

When someone hurts me, I either obsess over how to convince them I’m worthy of their love or obsess over how to destroy them.

But it took me a little longer to figure out that just because I love her, doesn't mean it's a good kind of love. It can be easier, sometimes, to choose to love someone you know won't return your feelings. At least you know how that will end. It's easier to accept hurt and pain, sometimes, than love and acceptance. It's the real, loving relationships that can be the scariest" -Dad

I’m always amazed by the depths of your bullshit.

What’re you afraid of? Everything. I’m scared I’m not living my life to my full potential. I’m scared I’m wasting my life when I’m meant to be doing something else, something more . . .