Even though I’m legally an adult, there are some ways in which I’ve yet to grow up—and, like a certain flying, green-clad, pirate-fighting boy, I hope I never will.

I have plushes of WALL-E, EVE, Mrs. Jumbo, and baby Dumbo on my bed. I have Mickey Mouse pens and a WALL-E figurine on my desk. I have an EPCOT hoodie and a Pluto t-shirt hanging in my closet. I have pictures of Disney princesses and villains on my wall, right across from my "Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Once Upon a Time" posters. I treasure the sketch I made of Donald Duck at Hollywood Studio’s Animation Academy. I eagerly await each new Disney Animated Feature, Pixar film, and Marvel movie—and don’t even get me started on Star Wars: Episode Seven! In other words, I am an unrepentant lover of all things Disney.

The music of Disney films dominates my daily mind. When I invite a friend over for dinner, I have to stop myself from mimicking a French candelabra and asking them to “put our service to the test.” When my professors warn me to study for exams, I instead hear Scar and the hyenas urging me to “be prepared”. And “when the cold wind is a-calling and the sky is clear and bright,” I might as well be riding horses and climbing mountains with Merida instead of just walking across campus to my next class.

One of my earliest memories is of watching "Cinderella" with my mother. I remember, after the scene in which Cinderella’s stepsisters destroy the dress that her animal friends worked so hard to make, my mother told me that Cinderella could have gone to the ball anyway without the pretty dress, and the prince would have still fallen in love with her, because love is about who you are, not about pretty dresses. (Yeah, maybe the messages of the earlier Disney films aren’t very good, but it provided a valuable teaching moment for me.)

I’ve always seen parts of myself in Disney characters: Belle’s love of reading, Sebastian’s passion for music, Bambi’s curiosity, Sully’s care for children, Esmeralda’s drive for justice, and WALL-E’s optimism. What makes Disney characters so long-lastingly beloved is that they really are us. Their dreams are our dreams. Their struggles are our struggles. I, for one, will never stop seeing them as people, real people, whose stories I care about and whose lives I can relate to.

When I met Baloo and King Louie at Animal Kingdom last spring, I asked Louie if he had learned how to make fire yet, since he so desperately wanted to in "The Jungle Book." It’s incredible how much a character can get across without words; Louie shook his head in sorrow, covered his eyes in shame, and threw back his head and held a foot in the air while putting the back of his palm to his forehead, dramatically lamenting his failure to be a human like Mowgli. Meanwhile, Baloo shrugged widely and gave me pointed looks, as if to ask, “Why oh why did you have to mention that?” By the end of our meet-and-greet, I was feeling very sorry about having brought up such a sore subject, and apologized profusely – once I managed to stop laughing, of course. While it will be at least a couple years before I can return to Disney World, I got the whole thing on camera and can relive the moment as many times as I want between now and then.

What can I say? I love all things Disney, even its melodramatic orangutans.