For most of my life, I thought of myself as a bookworm, not a nerd.

In my mind, nerds were the people who loved math, science, computers, and all the technical subjects that made my eyes glaze over. They were the kids building robots, memorizing equations, and spending their weekends at science fairs. I was the girl curled up in a corner with a book.

Bookworms were different—or so I thought.

We got lost in novels, biographies, history books, encyclopedias, and anything else we could get our hands on. We disappeared into libraries. We read long after everyone else had gone to sleep. We treated bookstores like sacred spaces and considered finding a forgotten gem on a dusty shelf the equivalent of striking gold.

But the older I get, the more I realize that being a bookworm is just another form of being a nerd.

The truth is, nerds are not defined by what they study. They are defined by their passion for learning and their willingness to dive deeply into a subject that fascinates them. The technical definition of a nerd is someone who is extremely interested in and knowledgeable about a particular subject, especially one that is intellectual, academic, or specialized.

By that definition, I have been a nerd all along.

I am a nerd about books. A nerd about literacy. A nerd about Black history. A nerd about Chicago history. A nerd about sociology. A nerd about genealogy. A nerd about music. A nerd about writing. Give me a topic that catches my interest and I will disappear down a rabbit hole faster than Alice in Wonderland.

I also learned that the definition of a nerd has changed over time. These days, some people use the term to describe someone—often a guy—who is deeply passionate about anime, gaming, comics, or other fandoms. There is also a stereotype that these interests make someone less popular or less likely to attract romantic attention compared to athletes or other traditionally popular students.

But stereotypes have a way of lagging behind reality.

Anime is mainstream now. Comic book movies dominate the box office. Video games make more money than many other forms of entertainment. The things that once got people labeled “weird” are now part of popular culture.

What hasn’t changed is the heart of what makes someone a nerd: curiosity.

A nerd is simply a person who loves something enough to learn everything they can about it.

When I look back over my life, I realize that curiosity has always been one of my defining traits. I was the child who read encyclopedias for fun. I remember life before the internet, back when knowledge came from libraries, dictionaries, and sets of encyclopedias that occupied entire bookshelves. Back when the Yellow Pages felt like a sacred text. Back when mastering the Dewey Decimal System was considered an art form.

I have spent a lifetime chasing knowledge. Literacy saved my life, and books helped shape the woman I became.

So maybe I’ve been giving myself the wrong title all these years.

Yes, I’m a bookworm.

But I’m also a nerd.

And honestly? I’m proud of both.