Following the Inauguration of Donald Trump, a feeling of helplessness has been enveloping me. Every day I have sunk deeper and deeper into a place where I felt like I couldn’t do anything about anything. I felt so small and unimportant. Everything seemed to be spinning out of control. I couldn’t even bring myself to go on Facebook because it always made me so upset and stressed out. I refused to look at the News App on my phone because it scared me. Every time I went online I found out something worse than the time before.

At night I would lay in bed and just think about what I could do to combat this feeling, and every single night I drew a blank. I went to bed feeling worse than I did when I first laid down. Nothing I thought of was a sufficient remedy to my feeling of helplessness. I truly felt as if nothing I did would make a difference. I have always been a huge proponent of the idea that everyone can make a difference. That it doesn’t matter that you’re just one person. That the little guy can win. And for the first time in my life, I stopped believing in this.

I had resigned myself to this feeling that nothing I did could make a difference and that nothing could stop this chain of events from playing out. I stopped thinking of ways I could make a difference at night. Instead trading it out for prayers for a miracle. I had finally given up, but luckily it didn’t last long.

This past week I saw a post on Facebook advertising openings to be writers for the Odyssey. I had heard of the Odyssey before and even know a couple people from high school who are writers for it. I always thought it would be kind of cool to do that. I’ve always loved to write and have missed it since coming to college. Nowadays I only ever write essays for class, never personal pieces. I thought that this could be a great opportunity for me to follow my passion for writing.

After filling out a request and interviewing I was pleased to hear that I was going to be an Odyssey writer. I was ecstatic, but I was also nervous. Now I had to think of a different topic to write on each week. And. of course, there was the tiny fact that I had to share my pieces for the whole world to see, making me feel self-conscious about what I wanted to write about. Despite all my fears, I knew that I couldn’t back out. I had to do this. You don’t give up on a dream just because it seems bigger than you.

And that’s when it hit me. Writing for Odyssey is bigger than me. It’s a way for me to reach out and change the world. To let it know exactly what I thought and to maybe even change it. Writing for Odyssey was the answer to my prayer. It was the miracle I had been asking for. Now I had the opportunity to make a difference in the world and combat the feeling of helplessness that had been consuming me. My mantra that anyone could make a difference was back in full force. I can't wait to change the world with my words.