"Now don't forget to smile, darling." "Well which one? I've mastered three of them." - Hugo

It's one in the morning and I really should be asleep. But it doesn't really feel right to sleep right now.

I'm graduating tomorrow, but I don't think that's what's keeping me from sleeping. I think life is keeping me from sleeping.

I knew exactly what I wanted to do three years ago. I remember sitting on a park bench one night at Maryville College and knowing I should be a journalist and fight horrible things in the world with my words and inspire others to make changes.

I still want to do that, but I think maybe I've shifted a little, too.

Over four years at university, I've learned that more than anything else, I love to tell stories. I love to tell other people's stories. I love to listen to peoples' stories and write them down for others to read. But I've learned that there's more to telling stories than just being a good journalist.

To tell a story means to be an inventor as well.

I've always had a wild imagination, thanks to a love of reading and learning put into me at an early age by my parents. But I never thought that would get me anywhere as a kid. I'd write my silly stories about love and squirrels and death and magic, just like any other socially awkward and introverted middle schooler. But that was for fun.

And then I get to college and meet a wonderful woman named Stacey Isom who showed me that it's okay to be an inventive storyteller.

I'm probably strange, but taking creative writing classes made me aware of the stories I could tell of characters I meet in my mind, not just people I find for journalism articles.

I'm rambling, but in my defense, it is one in the morning.

I just love a good story. I love reading a good story in a book and watching a good story on film and writing a good story through characters and people I run into.

Maybe I'll still do all those journalistically things I decided I would do on the park bench. God only knows, I guess.

But maybe I'll get to tell other stories too. Maybe I'll get to introduce the world to some of the characters I live with every day in my mind.

Their stories deserve to be told, too.