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When I was younger, I was terrified of fireworks. They were loud and unexpected and followed no sort of pattern of sound that I could prepare myself for. My autism was undiagnosed at the time, so triggers like this were often hard to explain or understand when they came up ...

Little by little I got more used to them, but it wasn't until I moved to Orlando and started working at Disney World that I fell in LOVE with them. Wishes, specifically. That was the night show at Magic Kingdom in 2012 when I started working for the mouse. And that was the show that changed everything.

My mom was diagnosed with her terminal cancer and the end of my first week here, and that night I headed to the park to try and lose myself for a few hours. I got caught up on main street during the fireworks, and for the first time I really truly listened to the lyrics. And I made a wish with every. Single. Explosion.

I wished for my mom, I wished for a miracle ... those fireworks became my prayers. And every time I saw them, I wished ... oh how I wished.

And then, the first time my parents came to visit and got to play with me at the parks, I watched my mom's face light up as she experienced the Hallowishes fireworks for the first time. It was like magic. She was happier than I'd seen her in years, and filled with more childlike wonder than I had seen perhaps ever. The pure joy ... magic.

After that, every chance they got, my parents came to Orlando. And every time, her health would improve after those trips. Her doctors were amazed. Whatever happened here at the parks with me, it helped her fight for four years instead of four months. And all of those best memories centered around the fireworks. Special dessert experiences the cast members created specially for us. Private seating for parade and Wishes, with characters coming up just to say hello to her. I had never seen my mom so uninhibited in her joy.

That was the miracle. Infusing her last few years with some of the best days of her life was my magic. I was the light in her darkest days, just like fireworks are a light in the darkest hours. Magical, loud, sparkling ...

... all things I was afraid of as child. Not just in fireworks, but in myself.

I was always too much. Too loud. Too big. Too ... me. But as I've tried more and more to accept and love myself the way I am, I keep coming back to these magical moments I helped make. Moments of light in the face of utter despair. I have done it for my friends, for my family, for my loved ones, for total strangers who have read my books or whose vacations I helped become something memorable to them. All the things I was scared to be, I adore more and more in myself, because those were the parts of me that saved people. That helped them fight. That helped them find something to hang onto when they just couldn't anymore.

I always want to be magic in the darkness.

I am a fireworks person. And I will be loud, sparkly, bright, and unexpected until the day I die.