I'm Olive. Let's start there. I am a historian, I'm currently on my last semester of finishing up a Master's degree in History. Mostly though, I am a writer. I enjoy exploring all sides of a topic and honestly enjoy being wrong or taught something new. I've always been someone with a lot on my mind—thoughts that come in like waves: unexpected, sometimes crashing, sometimes gentle, but always asking to be acknowledged. This space is my way of catching some of them before they

About a year ago, I learned I have obsessive compulsive disorder. I mean, I had my suspicions. I have to check my stove (that I don't even cook on, mind you) to make sure each knob is off. Sometimes I'll walk out of my apartment and immediately turn around to check again, just in case. I've done it so often that if a group of my friends are leaving with me, they'll just stand there and wait for me to go back inside one more time. When it comes time to vacation, I unplug absol

I saw a video recently of a little girl in what looked like a preschool recital. All the other kids around her were doing a cute little dance for their parents, but she stood there completely uninterested in making a potential fool of herself. At one point, she even says, with full disgust, "I'm not doing that!" I'm not the little girl in the video, but I was that little girl. It used to drive my mom crazy that I wouldn't do the cute things other kids would do. Even as a chil