If I Was Your Girl

For as long as I could remember, I had been apologizing for existing, for trying to be who I was, to live the life I was meant to lead.

You can have anything,” she said, “once you admit you deserve it.

I know it hurts. I know it hurts so bad you can barely breathe sometimes. I know because I’ve been there. Please don’t leave us. I promise life can be good, and we need you too much.

I wasn’t sorry I existed any more. I deserved to live. I deserved to find love. I knew now – I believed, now – that I deserved to be loved.

I’m not brave,” I said, smiling despite myself. “Bravery implies I had a choice. I’m just me, you know?” I

Hell, even the straight people have enough skeletons in their closet to fill a tomb. Everybody’s too afraid of going to hell or getting made fun of to be honest about what they want and who they are, so they can’t even really admit what they want to themselves.

I have a past, okay? And you really don't want to get involved with it.' 'Everybody's got a past,' he said. 'That doesn't mean you can't have a future.

You tried to kill yourself,” she said, rolling her eyes up to heaven and biting her knuckle. “Andrew Hardy was gonna die one way or the other, and one of the choices gave me a daughter in exchange while the other left me with no one.” “I

I’ve seen trans people in movies and TV shows, but judging by how unrealistic and shitty bi characters tend to be, I’m gonna assume I know nothing. So what’s okay for me to ask?

I wondered when I’d reach the end of things I didn’t know. *

There are enough people waiting to crap in your cereal without you doing it for them.

How much of life was like that, just waiting for me to come and give it a chance.

You can have anything once you admit you deserve it.

Amanda’s life and identity would be just as valid if she didn’t figure herself out until later in life, or if she were a tomboy, or if she were bisexual or a lesbian or asexual, or if she had trouble passing, or if she either could not or chose not to get “bottom” surgery.

God wanted me to live, and this was the only way I knew how to survive, so this was what God wanted.

You know walls are there for a reason though, right? They keep things from falling apart.

Just 'cause I'm bi doesn't mean I have magic powers. I'm not the plucky queer sidekick in your romantic comedy.

Just because you have a past doesn't mean you can't have a future.

I wondered if joy could ever be felt by itself without being tainted with fear and confusion, or if some level of misery was a universal constant, like the speed of light.

Being a girl in this world means being afraid. That fear'll keep you safe. It'll keep you alive.

I have, in some ways, cleaved to stereotypes and even bent rules to make Amanda’s trans-ness as unchallenging to normative assumptions as possible.

Radical faith means you trust that the Lord visited these weaknesses and sorrows on you as part of His plan...

As I spoke I thought back to what Virginia had said weeks before, about getting anything you wanted if you let yourself believe you deserved it. For as long as I could remember, I had been apologizing for existing, for trying to be who I was, to live the life I was meant to lead. Maybe this would be the last conversation I would ever have with Grant. Maybe not. Either way, I realized, I wasn’t sorry I existed anymore. I deserved to live. I deserved to find love. I knew now—I believed, now—that I deserved to be loved.

that you think makes you so complicated couldn’t make me

There is no wrong way to express and embody your most authentic self!

I like him a lot.... I think I might love him. And it obviously isn't everything, but being the way I am has been a huge part of my life. It's easy to act like my past never happened, but it feels like I've put up this wall around my heart.

[S]omething had to change. Because I had changed.

I thought of going the rest of my life pretending I sprang to life from nothing at sixteen years old and felt my cheeks flush with shame and anger. I was so tired of cowering. I was so tired of hiding. I wanted to tell the truth, to say it out loud.

His shadow stretched out past mine. I remembered Mom telling me how frightening men were, all men really, how helpless it often felt to be a woman among men, and for the first time I understood what she meant.