You may have read how I joined Odyssey as a joke, or how I hate all the shallow and meaningless content on this site, but you probably also expected to continue to hear from me over this platform for a while longer. If that's you, then I'm sorry, but I need to move on.

Odyssey was great at getting me started dealing with story deadlines and writing-related responsibilities, and once I became an editor it taught me how to work with members of a writing team to make content that people might, maybe, want to read. But I guess I'm becoming restless trying to stay interesting and relevant to people my age when people my age refuse to be truly interested in anything I am.

I could keep treating this publication as a music blog, a place to tell lame jokes about I-35 or a forum for my unnecessarily complicated analyses, but that's not what Odyssey is supposed to be.

I have no idea what Odyssey is supposed to be; all I know is it's not a place for me anymore.

There's really no such thing as a dream job when you're still in school, but my current internship with Texas Highways Magazine is pretty close. I'm writing actual articles that people who aren't my family read and I've learned a lot about magazine design and production, all within the first three weeks.

My new job is a way to move forward, away from where I started and on to where I'm hopefully going to end up. There's always a tradeoff, and this time, it's between Odyssey and, well, everything else.

Here's the truth: I don't want to be a listicle writer my entire life. It's not my dream to work for Buzzfeed or some other web-based and shareable platform. I know a lot of people who would kill to do that — maybe even literally — but I'm not one of those people.

A lot of my dream publications, The New York Times Magazine and the Texas Observer, to name a couple, are far more focused on things I care about than Odyssey — that's a given. Instead of compiling kitten gifs, I could write more extensive articles on prison reform or LGBTQ issues or something I legitimately want to know and share more about. So why don't I focus more of my energy on making those dreams and those stories transition into my reality?

I started to want to leave Odyssey at the beginning of this past spring semester, but right when I was going to message the then-editor-in-chief, I got a message from her first, asking me if I would want to take over her position. Of course, I said yes, and I don't regret doing so.

But when I got the call to interview for Texas Highways, I was far more enthusiastic than I'd ever been about a writing gig, and I want that enthusiasm to continue — I need it to.

So goodbye Odyssey, and goodbye to everyone who reads these things. It's been a good run.

I'll see you soon.