Welcome to the story of my life, a sixteen year old girl who's never been kissed and stays up until 3 am watching Merlin and reading fantasy novels. I want to catch criminals, fight goblins, fall in love with a medieval warrior, act in movies, write books, give speeches and be in magazines. When some girls watch The Notebook, I watch The Avengers. When girls watch Pretty Little Liars, I watch Sherlock and Merlin. When I feel lonely on Friday nights, it’s Middle Earth, Camelot, and 221B Baker Street that comfort me. I dream of fighting alongside Aragorn and Prince Arthur, falling asleep to the sound of one of Bilbo’s stories, and catching serial killers with Sherlock Holmes. When some teens sneak out to party and get high, I sneak out into the woods so I can recite monologues and play pretend in peace. When most outgrew playing house years ago, the idea of it still appeals to me. I carry around a forensic science textbook and listen to film scores.

And the thing is, I’m happy. I’m happy to be who I am, in all my strangeness. I want you to know that you are important. You are special and wonderful in all of your flaws and your oddities. The stranger you are, the better off you’ll be, I swear it. I know it doesn’t feel that way all of the time. I know how it feels to be scared of who you are. I know how it feels to wonder if you’re really worth anything. I know how it feels to think you’d be better off pretending to be someone else. But I also know that you are meant for so much more than wasting your life trying to fit in. You were born to stand out. It’s your destiny to change the world.