Dear reader,

I'm about to pour my heart out. So if you aren't ready for some real-ness (Is that a word? Am I even an English major?), then you should probably stop reading.

Someday I imagine I will look back on this time and wonder why any of this mattered, but it sure matters now.

Does it ever feel like you're just on a hamster wheel and you are running and running all the time, and you are tired and you wonder why you ever got on the wheel in the first place? And then you realize -- you're just a hamster. That's what you're supposed to do. That's what is expected of you. That is what makes you who you are.

If I was an animal, I would be a hamster. For sure.

But I'm not an animal. I am a human.

This week, someone told me that I would never succeed unless I have a Bachelor's degree. And really, that's why I came to college. And I hate to think that that was the main reason, and I wonder if I was just naive or just susceptible to what society expects of me.

I've tried a million different things. I have tried majoring in science, I have tried studying music, I have thought about just quitting the whole thing altogether. Eventually I found English, Drama and Journalism and ended up liking those things a lot. But it still gets me that I can never achieve my dreams without studying for four more years of my life.

Don't get me wrong, I love my school. Walla Walla University is a great place to be with a lot of wonderful people. I just wish it wasn't my only option.

I want to be a writer. I desperately love poetry, I desperately love looking at the world and penning down what I see into a few short words -- it's how I keep memories -- both good and bad, it's how I deal with pain, joy and sorrow, it's where I keep my emotions, struggles and failures.

But they tell me I can't do that unless I go to college.

For as long as I can remember, I have always been wanting to go to the next step. I wanted to have a job at 13, I wanted to drive at 12, I got senioritis during sophomore year of high school, I literally counted the days til I went to university like a madwoman.

And now I'm here. And all I really want to do now is just want to go on spontaneous adventures and write about them.

Maybe it's that I'm growing up and I don't want to be caged in by anything any longer. The crazy piece is that what I don't usually think about is that after college, I will be caged in by loans, caged in by where I work, caged in by -- well, anything really.

That's just how life is. And I wish it wasn't that way. But it is.

If you feel the same way I do, don't expect that I have the right answer that will make it "all better". Because I am still surviving day by day trying to figure that out myself.

But what I can tell you is this -- if you are feeling caged in or burnt out in the stage you are in, you HAVE to find joy somewhere. For me, it's writing. That's why I write for Odyssey. It's the good part of college right now. I don't feel caged in when I write. I feel free.

I am also blessed with a boyfriend who enjoys going on random adventures with me -- adventures that I have a collection of little stories, poems and musings about -- and I am also lucky to live in a place where I am surrounded by all my friends.

Things don't just get better, you have to consciously make an effort to make your life better. If you spend all your time focusing on the hamster wheel and how fast you are running and you never look up to see the bright blue sky and the beautiful landscape above and around you, you'll never go anywhere. You'll never experience joy.

And I'm not saying this because I have it figured out ...God knows I should really take my own advice. But enjoy this time of your life. Enjoy being caged in (as weird as that sounds) -- I expect great things from the next step in my life, but I don't want to waste the years I have wishing I was at a different point in life. Because if I do that, sooner than later I will be looking back with regret rather than looking forward with hope. And I don't want that.

Live in the now. Find happiness in the now. It'll be worth it. I promise.

And if you ever see me around or find the desire to shoot me a message or a comment, remind me of the same.

Stay amazing, stay happy, stay free. It's a mindset.

xoxo,

Lindsey