Hey there! My name's Mary, nice to meet you. I'm 30 years old and I've been through some crazy stuff in my life so far.

Growing up, I was always a bit of an outsider. My parents were hippies who moved from place to place when I was young, trying to find that perfect utopian community where everyone loved each other. They thought the system was flawed and wanted to create their own little bubble. We ended up in some pretty weird places – one time we lived in a commune with 20 families, and another time we stayed in this super remote town in Colorado for months.

But despite all that nomad-ing around, I had a pretty normal childhood otherwise. My parents were always encouraging me to explore my creativity – they'd take me on long hikes through the woods and have me collect leaves and twigs to make collages back home. And they taught me how to play music – my mom played guitar and my dad played harmonica.

Anyway, that all changed when I was about 18. My parents got into this huge fight over some deep philosophical disagreement – it's still a bit fuzzy in my head what exactly it was about, but basically they just started shouting at each other one day and never stopped. We ended up getting kicked out of the commune we were living in, and from then on I was on my own.

I spent a few years drifting around, trying to find myself and figure out who I wanted to be outside of this hippie bubble. I got into all sorts of wild things – partying too much, dating a bunch of guys with bad attitudes... it was pretty messy. But eventually, I started to get my life together again.

Nowadays, I work as a freelance writer, and I'm really passionate about telling stories that highlight the weirdness and beauty of life on the fringes of society. That's probably why you're talking to me right now – haha!

How about you? What brings you here today?