Following in the footsteps of my fellow Odyssey writers, I'm going ahead with the college essay challenge. To celebrate the end of first semester and the start of a new year in just a couple of weeks, I'm positing my college essay. It seems the proper time to reflect after surviving these last three months and most importantly finals.

Looking back on the paper (that without having written I may not have gotten any acceptance letters) has made me realize that I still am trying to become a better writer and that I have actually no idea what it means to be an adult even after playing pretend these last three months. This essay is just as important as the day I sent it to my future college because it reminds me of how far I've come and still have to go. In honor of this challenge and the fact that a year ago this essay was being read by admissions officers at the many colleges I applied to, here it is:

Cruel and unusual punishment is an overused phrase, but fitting description in this case. I’m referring of course, to the infamous college essay and the grueling task of writing a worthy one. My computer sits propped up precariously on my lap and my fingers are poised to type, though I have full knowledge that they won’t be put to use any time soon. That would require my brain to function enough to come up with even the most cliché and unoriginal idea. Yet, for some reason I can’t seem to stop thinking about the irony that anytime I need to think clearly, my mind turns into something that resembles my locker on the last day of school, empty and useless.

I can’t help but feel an utter sense of defeat wash over me as this is not the first time I’ve sat staring at a bare word document, mocking me I’m sure. They say writer’s block eventually disappears, though I assumed that would happen before I began pulling my hair out in search of my epiphany that will surely blow my mind and that of anyone else who reads my writing. I’m beginning to realize it doesn’t want to be found.

It doesn’t seem fair that parents and friends are allowed to withhold the truth of this excruciating experience, pretending it’s “not that bad.” I was assured an idea would come to me and the rest of the process would be a breeze. Not a chance. One draft seemed doable, or at the very least, endurable, but I hadn’t accounted for the tenth or twentieth drafts of entirely new approaches, and even worse, new reasons to throw them away and start fresh. I try to remind myself failure is inevitable, but I find it hard to believe that anyone else spends two hours on two sentences and then deletes them altogether because they don’t sound absolutely perfect.

My hands are slowly cramping and eternally backspacing. I’m on the verge of a breakdown at this point, which may seem dramatic, but I can assure you that the frustration I’m experiencing is more than enough to produce one. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s feeling lost and knowing there is no one but me who can find the way back. I quit cheerleading in elementary school, acting in middle school and tried to convince myself I could learn to like sports when I got to high school, though I failed in that department. I grapple for one coherent thought to pop in my head and nothing. I’m tempted to shut my computer and give up yet again. This time, though, I push through what one might describe as agony knowing I cannot abandon this.

This is the moment when I let my fingers run rampant without allowing myself to read through the words, so as not to find new criticisms. In fact, I’m typing this at a speed I didn’t know was possible, and I have yet to miss a key. My palms are sweaty and my heart is beating though I am sitting perfectly still, as words, actual sentences, show up on my screen. It feels like I’m managing some sort of miracle, and I sit with my hands crossed on my lap as I read through my draft for the first time.

I sigh even now, unsatisfied with my words, but I know that I have to press send. If this were easy to do, you wouldn’t ask for an essay and it wouldn’t be worth these hours. That, not the “what” and the “how”, but the “why” is what matters. Understanding the reason I have to write essays even at the cost of a few sleepless nights, and thinking of this thing called the future as more than a far off entity I’ll never reach, is adulthood.