My journey with Odyssey began in May of this year. I came across Odyssey and the community Aspiring Journalism Professionals (AJP) during the lowest point in my life, and I couldn’t be more thankful that I did.

Since my journey with AJP, I have made new friends with my fellow team members, assisted with recruiting, been a contributing editor and am now the community health manager. It’s pretty safe to say I’ve gotten a lot out of my journey with AJP and Odyssey already, but I’m not finished yet.

However, the biggest thing I’ve gotten out of it - and something I will never get over, is that I met and completed one of my biggest dreams/life goals while I was still in high school. I was published on a widely recognized, national platform.

That was, still is and will forever be so beyond crazy to me.

So, what was it like?

Writing my first article was completely exhilarating and absolutely surreal. I still couldn’t believe I was doing this, and a lot of the time, I still can’t. When it got published, I was so excited to begin sharing it and trying to get some traction on it. I just wanted to see where it would go and see if I was really “talented enough” to do this.

Well, my first article still stands as one of my top articles since I joined, so I guess that was pretty good.

When the first one was published, I was just still so in shock that I didn’t process that I had just completed a goal of mine before I even graduated from high school.

To be completely honest, I didn’t process it until my conversation with my former EIC just the other day.

But now I’m finding myself wondering what my next big dream will be.

The truth about that next big dream is that I don’t really know what it is. For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved writing and I always wanted to be published in some sense.

It was never necessarily a book, a magazine or an online platform like this. All I knew was that I wanted to be published someday, somehow. Maybe one day I’ll realize my next big dream is, in fact, writing a book or working with a magazine like Cosmopolitan.

Maybe I’ll want to work more on the content or editing side of this business. It’s OK, I don’t have to know yet.

For now, I’m going to continue to ride the Odyssey wave for as long as I can. This platform has been amazing for me, and every single day I feel so blessed to write for Odyssey and be part of the community I’m in.

I work with some of the most talented people I’ve ever met in my entire life, and I constantly get to learn something new. I think that is the best part about this entire thing - besides meeting a dream so early on, of course.