I am someone who likes to plan ahead and set myself up for the future. If there is something that can be done now to make my week or month easier, I like to do it ahead of time. I like to plan and I like to have an idea of what my future holds. I have always had the notion that after you graduate high school, you go to a four-year college, start your career, get married, and start a family.

This past year has opened my eyes to see that everyone has a different path and that the cookie-cutter plan I envisioned in my head did not even apply to me. I was able to take a semester off from college in order to move cities and train with an amazing track coach in Panama City Beach, FL. When I return to Florida State University for my last semester, I will only need to take five credit hours worth of classes and finish my pole vaulting career in the spring.

I used to look down on the idea of taking a gap year or a semester off because I thought that just wasn't what people did. You "do your time" in school and take classes as efficiently as you can and then graduate. When the opportunity to take a semester off presented itself to me, I threw away all of those negative thoughts about not following that "perfect plan."

I have learned so much this past semester and I haven't even been in school. I got a taste of what life will be like after college. I got to train with the coach that I plan to train when my collegiate track career is over. I got to meet people who have experienced so much in life and it got me out of the college mindset.

The things we, students, think are so big and important really don't matter much after we graduate. The GPA we killed ourselves to maintain doesn't matter much. The outfit we wore to that party is never remembered by anyone except for us. The little things that are so drastic to us at that time are not worth our stress and anxiety.

This semester has taught me more than any college course could have. I have learned a lot of life lessons in these few months here and I think one of the most important lessons is that there is no cookie-cutter plan to follow. We are all made to follow our own unique plan that God has designed for us. The "perfect plan" does not exist and learning to let that idea go has been so freeing.