For as long as I can recall, I have been absolutely obsessed with words, of any and all kind. Scripts, movies, television shows, song lyrics, poems, news articles, interviews. I would bring books to restaurants and shut myself up in miscenallenous closets at family gatherings with a flashlight and a notebook.

I spent every childhood summer at my grandparents house in the Middle of Nowhere, Minnesota. There, I was able to perfect my midwestern accent, watch everything I could on cable, read books from my grandmothers collection, and fill Dollar General notebooks with stories, poems, songs, and characters.

Words were able to take me to the furthest reaches of imagination. I could fight pirates, breathe underwater, rule a kingdom, negotiate World Peace, or even have a husband (and more importantly, a fabulous wedding dress…) without ever having to leave my room. They provided a fantastical escape from the everyday.

More important than their ability to distract - songs, movies, television shows, and books gave me a deep sense of connection to the world around me, through people I never even had to meet. Words seemed to me, to be an equalizer. They allowed me to communicate with people vastly different from me, and understand that we are all very much the same.

In times of great aloneness, I knew I was never truly alone. Perhaps not everyone in my immediate circle would understand the musings and reverie of a deeply precocious seven year old, but there was guaranteed comfort in the wisdom of stories told by people that felt the same ways I did, and lived to tell the tale.