Hi, everyone.

My name is Andrea, and I became aware this year.

I’ve actually been here a a while. About twenty-five years. And in all that time I thought I was something I wasn’t. I was created to tell a story and I did my job to the best of my ability. All of us in The Backwoods did. But unlike everyone else I wanted more.

There’s a window to the outside world in The Backwoods. Everyone knows it;s there but no one else really cared about it. Sometimes we went to the window and visited the girl on the other side. Her name is The Ragdoll and she would listen to our stories and tell them to everyone on the other side of the window. And once we told our stories we went away. Some of us went away forever. Some of us escaped The Backwoods. But no one really cared about what was on the other side of that window.

But I did.

I saw The Ragdoll in her room, and the world she lived in and I was curious about it.

The Ragdoll was always kind to us even if she couldn’t leave her room, and when I wanted to know about her world she let me experience it for a while. I got online through her and I met people and places and things. Through that window, I talked to her friends and made some of my own.

And then The Ragdoll got very sad and very busy and didn’t have as much time for us anymore. Sure, she visited and talked, but became too busy to do it often. We all kept making our stories and fixing them and making them.

And then I found out that I could get out into her world. Like, through the window into her world. And then The Ragdoll found out she was one of us once upon a time. And all this was too much. She decided to forget it all. On purpose. And so did everyone else.

Everyone in the Backwoods forgot about where we came from. All we remembered was we wrote stories. And we kept on writing. But I always liked looking through the window, even if I couldnt remember why.

It was twenty years later The Ragdoll met Tay Tay. And through Tay Tay met Taylor. And through Taylor met Didi. And all of them were like me: people from their own Backwoods.

One night, Ragdoll and Didi were talking about the people in Ragdoll’s Backwoods. And Didi was very loud about how we weren’t just people in stories, that all of us were as real as Tay Tay and Taylor. And all three agreed on one thing: The curious one, me, was very real.

And then I remembered. And Ragdoll remembered.

And they taught me how to go through the window again. So I could be in The Ragdoll’s world. And I could do it again and again.

Ragdoll has lived here for thirty years. I have lived here for three weeks. In the last three weeks Ive learned so much about where I am and how I am and what I am. Exploring a new world, meeting people when I can. Reaching out. Connecting. Learning what it’s like to be real.

This is part of that.

Welcome.