When I left home to come to university, I had a solid plan: I would study as hard as I could, win a ton of scholarships, and graduate with top grades. I knew that it would make for a barren, lonely life, but I was used to that, and I knew that I couldn't really handle anything else, or anything more. Socially incompetent as I was, hiding behind books and grades was my only strategy. I wish I could travel back in time to tell my younger self about all the wonderful things that lie in store for me. I could probably get away with it; my younger self would most likely think me a hallucination and ignore my gibberish, sparing us from a temporal paradox. I couldn't really blame them, either, because I still can't quite believe everything my life brought to me. Frankie, Ben, Ms. Anzengruber, AK, the house, the magic, the raccoons... None of them were part of my plan, and each of them makes my life infinitely more complicated than I ever thought possible. They make it worth living, though. Whether I can take the last step into adulthood and learn to live with them, that's the issue. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I've got what it takes, but I am sure of something: I love them all too damn much not to give it my best shot.