This is an I-Heart podcast.

And we continue with our American stories.

And our next story comes to us from Sarah Wells, author of American Honey,

a field guide to resisting temptation.

Let's take a listen.

I grew up on a farm in the frayed edge of suburbia, I would say.

It was an Auburn Township, pretty traditional upbringing with a stay-at-home mom and the

working class dad, kind of a pull yourself up from the bootstraps type of home life. And that was what I expected

the future to look like. I had one degree in mind when I would graduate from college, and that was my

MRS. I had dreams of being a writer, of teaching, but it was always in the background that what would really happen is I would meet the man of my dreams and we would live happily ever after.

I would stay home and raise my kids just like my mom had done.

And so that was the mission that I had coming into high school and into my college career.

Always keeping in mind my dad, my dad was this and is somebody that I've always looked up to tremendously. I adored my dad and wanted to be with

my dad all the time. And he was kind of my model for the kind of man that I wanted to marry.

And so I went through like many girls do, a boy crazy phase where from probably the age of 13 to 21,

I had a boyfriend every month, long-term boyfriend relationships.

And as soon as that one would end, I would start in and find a new one.

And I really craved love and adoration. My dad was a hardworking

dad. And he was always gone early in the morning, working late into the evening. And I think that I

craved his attention so much that I had kind of a gaping hole of desire

from a young teenager all the way through to college.

Eventually, I met my now husband, Brandon.

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