Hey y'all.

Welcome to Coming Out with Lauren and Nicole.

We are a weekly podcast where we bring on queer folks from all walks of life.

They tell us the tales of how they came out to friends, family, and the world at large.

Because who doesn't love a coming out story? We're doing something a little bit different today. We sure are. Yeah, just to mix things up. To keep you guys on your toes. Keep you guessing. Yeah, well, we, I don't know. I mean, we have, you know, I don't want to call it a formula, but it is a little bit of a formula. a little bit of a formula. It's one that works and we love it. A perfect formula. A perfect formula. But it's fun to depart from that and I don't know, add some variety in every once in a while. Hard agree. Yeah, so we just decided to switch it up for your benefit and ours. Yeah. And so right now it's just me and Nicole.

Yeah.

But we've received a, I don't know if you, I don't think you'd call it a story,

a personal essay is maybe what you'd call it.

From a listener, I hope so much I'm pronouncing your name correctly.

I'm going to go with Breanne Campbell, B-R-E-E-A-N-N.

Yeah, it's probably Breanne.

I feel good about that from Breanne Campbell.

And so she sent in this personal story.

Her subject line was The Girl Who Came Out,

and she referenced Harry Potter in her little

not cover letter but little email and immediately I was like this is a Nicole's wheelhouse

yes and what we'll be doing is we'll be reading her story and stopping and starting like we

would in a normal conversation as though we had a guest with us as though she was. It's just she's going to be speaking through us. Yeah. And we'll stop and start and comment and all that good stuff. But yeah, just to give you guys a little background on my Harry Potter obsession since it comes into this story. So I read Harry Potter right out of college.

Oh, yeah, that's when I read the first one.

Yeah, I read right out of college and loved it like everybody else did and, you know, was just really taken with it.

But it wasn't until right after my sister passed away, so this was four years ago, that the actual obsession began.

Because my best friend from home, my maid of honor, sent me the Harry Potter audiobooks on a zip drive in a beautiful card after my sister passed away because she's my my best friend had gone through

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