As I've mentioned before, I was born and raised in a small town, and this little world is the only one I have ever known. But this Friday, I took a huge step and moved into my dorm at Middle Tennessee State University. So, in honor of that, I thought I would share one of my favorite stories from my childhood. When I was five, I went to my mom and told her "Someday, I'm going to go to Harvard Law School!" My plans may have changed a bit, but that drive and passion for excellence is still something I deeply value. In high school I was a member of the Beta Club, National Honors Society, National Forensics League, Secretary of the Student Body (2013-2014) and Secretary-Treasurer of the Senior Class (2015-2016), accompanist and soloist in the chorus/show choir, founding member of the speech and debate team and Relay-For-Life team leader (2015-2016). I think it's safe to say that I want to be the very best (like no one ever was...).

Sometime in there, between ages two and six, my mom and I lived with my grandparents after she and my dad divorced. I slept in my Nannie’s room on what was essentially a cot that I had affectionately named “my sweet little bed.” And boy, was I proud of it. Whenever we had company I would quite literally drag them to the back bedroom over enthusiastically saying “Come look! Come see my sweet little bed!”

Mine is a family of truckers- both of my uncles, my aunt and my Poppa- are consistently “on the road” and have been since before I was born. On one occasion, when I still had “my sweet little bed,” Poppa came home from dropping off a load and set his wallet on the dresser… Only to return less than 10 minutes later to find it gone. We searched everywhere for it- in the cab of his semi, the ground where he had it parked, under his bed, on the floor in his room- but to no avail. The wallet seemed to have inexplicably disappeared.

So we drove to town and canceled all of his credit cards, and on the way home he said “Well, I guess the spooks must have gotten it."

It was at this point that I started giggling uncontrollably, and I said “Poppa, the spooks didn’t get it! I hid it so the bad guys wouldn’t get it!” You see, through all of this I had been calmly standing on the sidelines, and in their panic no one thought to ask me if I knew what happened to it.

Suffice to say, I retrieved the wallet from it’s hiding place behind the dresser and peace was restored to the household.

And the bad guys were thwarted once again.