Ever since I was little, writing has been my strongest and favorite subject in school. I have struggled with math and science, but writing always was easy and made sense. However, while I knew that I loved writing, I never shared anything that I wrote with anyone, barely even my parents. I wrote for school assignments and occasionally I would write a story or thoughts on my laptop, but never for anyone else to see.

This summer, as I was preparing to leave for college, I got an opportunity that would put me right on the path that I have always dreamt of being on, getting to write for this very website, "Odyssey". For so long I have read the articles others have written that showed up on my Facebook timeline, and thought about how cool it was. Getting the chance to potentially be the person showing up on other peoples' timelines, seemed too good to be true.

However, despite my excitement, I was scared. I had always talked about how I loved writing with my friends and family, but never had anyone seen anything I had written, so for all they knew, I could be awful. I was terrified when I learned that is was necessary for me to share my pieces on social media. It is scary to put yourself out there, your passion on display for everyone to see, and possibly shoot down. The thing is though, that is how you grow, and by holding back, you never know what you could be missing. Lucky for me, I have gotten more out of this than I ever thought I could.

In the short time that I have been fortunate enough to write for Odyssey, I have been so humbled by the outpouring of support from my friends, family, and even people that I barely know, telling me how much they love my articles and look forward to reading them every week. That really just validates everything that I have been working towards, and reassures me that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life-- write for people.

Thank you, Odyssey, for giving me this platform to FINALLY share my writing, share my voice, share my stories, relate to people, be an outlet, put me on the path I want for my future, but above all, do something I just really love doing. The month I have spent writing for you has completely changed my confidence and my fear of getting shut down or worrying I am not good enough. And that, is more than I could ever ask for. I know that the best is yet to come, and I cannot wait.