Writing is a foolish passion. It is frustrating, devastating, nauseating, and often leaves no reward.

Why should anyone give a crap about what you say?

It's writing and rewriting and mulling it over so much that by the time you are done, you aren't even sure why you started writing in the first place. Writing is exploiting your insecurities, vulnerabilities, and weakness.

For the past two years, I have written an article every week and hated every second of it. I have cried over my confessions, screamed at my screen, and laughed over my ludicrousness.

Do we write because we are selfish and want to get rotten feelings off our chest? Or do we want to be selfless and make people chuckle over our silly .GIFs and wild stories?

I write because no matter how much I hate it, no matter how many stupid hours I spend grueling over word choice, no matter how many tears and violent shakes expel from my body, I have this obsessive need and drive to spit it all out onto my laptop and force my Facebook friends to read it.

I've decided to take an early retirement and step away from Odyssey. You bet your ass that my drive to make people read my feral stories and trivial epiphanies will not be going away any time soon, though.

But this is like my Emmy acceptance speech so I have a few thank-yous to give.

Thanks to the hundreds of thousands of people who read my articles. I am 100% number dropping here because it validates what I do (I know it shouldn't but come on.)

Thank you to the Odyssey team for pushing me and teaching me everything from killer headlines to channeling inner identities (Mikayla and Byron, I am pointing at you).

Thanks to journalism profs who have absolutely no idea that I write on a platform but influenced my writing anyways.

Thanks to my parents because you always said things like, "Wow, that letter you sent me from summer camp was so well written." And that taught me it doesn't take a genius to connect with people.

Odyssey was a big part of my life for a long time and I will forever be grateful for the opportunity and lessons learned.