For as long as I can remember, I’ve moved from one obsession to the next like it was my full‑time job. I don’t “kind of” like things — I deep‑dive, hyperfocus, and emerge weeks later with a new personality and a small pile of merch. Anything that sparked emotion in me became my entire world for a while. And honestly? It still does. My first great love was music. I was a child of the 80s, which meant Michael Jackson wasn’t just famous — he was the cultural event. I had every album, every doll, every VHS tape. If it had his face on it, I owned it. I even have a vague, dreamlike memory of the Disney ride, like a fever dream of sequins and space. That era was my first taste of what it felt like to fall completely in love with something. Then came country music. Yes, I know — not the plot twist you were expecting. But I had every album, wrote fan letters, and wore cowboy boots like I was auditioning for a life I absolutely did not live. It was a whole era. Cue my teen years, when being cool wasn’t cool, and I fell headfirst into The Beatles. Wrong decade, wrong generation, zero regrets. I collected everything: mugs, albums, blankets, toys, movies, tin lunchboxes. If it had a yellow submarine on it, it was coming home with me. In my twenties, the pendulum swung again — this time straight into the sun‑soaked world of Jimmy Buffett. Growing up in Jersey, going “down the shore” was practically a personality trait, so beach music felt like destiny. I finally had a word for what I’d been chasing all along: escapism. I collected the albums, the shirts, the memorabilia. I still have an entire room in my house that is aggressively, unapologetically Key West green. But here’s the thing I didn’t understand until much later: every obsession was about the same thing. Joy. Emotion. Imagination. The stuff that makes life feel bigger and brighter. I’m a very privileged, very spoiled (in the best way) human. I work hard, I’m educated, and I don’t struggle. That puts me in the unique position to — as Gazelle would say — “try everything.” I don’t have kids, but my students keep me up to date on trends whether I ask for it or not. And somewhere along the way, I circled back to Disney.

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