"It's simple to love someone... but it's hard to know when you need to say it out loud." (When You Reach Me)

…Philip Pullman has said that your life begins when you are born, and your story begins when you discover that you have been born into the wrong family by mistake.

But when does the life of a storyteller begin?

Mine began when I was about six. Up until then, I had half-believed that my mother could read my thoughts. But at some point during first grade, I realized that I was completely alone in my own consciousness. I used to regularly freak myself out by sitting still, closing my eyes, and asking myself the same question over and over until I was in a sort of trance. The question was, How am I me?

What I meant was, How did my particular self get in here? Again and again, I would close my eyes and plunge myself into this existential angst. Why did I do it? I think that, like someone alone in a dark room, I was feeling around for a door. Because I really, really did not want to be alone in there.

( And I did find a door, eventually. )