Growing up, my capacity for wonder was, for lack of a better word, quite annoying and frankly unfathomable.

I truly believed anything was possible.

I was the kind of kid who believed Disney magic was real, that animals could probably talk if someone just bothered to train them properly, and that, with enough determination, I could jump directly into a storybook like they did on Blue’s Clues. I tried that last one regularly. (It never worked).

But the funny thing is, that didn't bother me. I was completely convinced that someday it would work if I just kept trying. Somewhere along the way to adulthood, that childlike sense of wonder was gradually replaced by a much more practical idea of what life was supposed to look like.I began measuring myself against a vague checklist called “success”: earn my master’s degree, find a steady career, get married, build a stable life, contribute responsibly to a 401(k) to prepare diligently for the thrilling eventuality of retirement.

By 25, I had set it all up. I had the degree, the career, the marriage, the retirement accounts, and a perfectly respectable plan for the decades ahead. I had followed the instructions. I had done everything I thought I was supposed to do. And yet, instead of arriving at some magical finish line where fulfillment was waiting for me, life became remarkably still. Days settled into a predictable rhythm of working, sleeping, and doing it all again. I had checked the boxes. I had accomplished what I thought I was supposed to accomplish. But the happiness I assumed would automatically come with those achievements never quite materialized.

Eventually, I realized that accomplishment and fulfillment aren't necessarily the same thing. And, perhaps more importantly, I started wondering what had happened to that ridiculous little kid who thought she could jump into books.

Voice acting became part of my answer.

There is something wonderfully absurd about the fact that I spent my childhood desperately trying to enter fictional worlds, only to grow up and discover a career where I get to do exactly that, just not quite in the way I imagined.

Now, I get to step behind a microphone and become someone else for a little while. I get to help turn words on a page into people you can hear, understand, laugh with, cry with, and hopefully believe in. Voice Acting brought back another piece of that childhood wonder. Streaming as HewwoReese, I get to improvise, experiment, be ridiculous, create things simply because they sound fun, and share that experience with other people in real time.

In a strange way, I think I've spent much of my adult life finding my way back to the person I was before I decided everything needed to be practical.

I still can't physically jump into a storybook.

But getting to voice the characters inside one?

Honestly, that's pretty close.

ReeseGrey.contact@gmail.com