If you create something, have success, and walk away was it worth it? Let’s explore that together.

In 2017, I had a blog called Muirin Project where I shared poetry, artwork, personal essays, historical research, and my own very detailed historical fiction novel called Udal Cuain. The title of the novel was a Scottish word, Udal Cuain, which means to be tossed around by the sea. The name Muirin is an Irish word meaning born of the sea. At the time of writing, my life could be described as being thrashed around in confused seas and I was searching for a way to emerge out of the chaos and be “myself” again.

I did not understand why my life was drifting into this stormy sea. Previously in 2015, I was on a high of happiness with life falling into place. College surrounded me with friends, a purpose, mentors, and a mail room job I loved it because I interacted with so many people on my mail runs. During the summer I had a painting job and time with family, who at the time was close-knit with my grandparents as anchors. In 2013, I built a close bond with my fellow female history majors, helped start the first history honors society, and was provided the opportunity by my history mentor to explore dress history. I met my husband and we got engaged in 2015. The same year I graduated with honors and was accepted into a grad program in fashion merchandising.

Due to budget cuts, the program was cut from the degree offerings. I quickly learned like many of us did in the 2010s that the job market was not good, especially in the rust belt. As I stared down my wedding, I was spending my days being an assistant for a local painting company, the only girl on the job site being talked down to for doing man’s work and being harassed for my faith. Meanwhile, my hair was being destroyed by the paint sprayers’ overspray, which had always been my source of confidence. It was the deep end, no longer in the Christian bubble I had blossomed in, and I was feeling underwhelmed by adulthood. In 2016, a week after I got married, I was fired from that job with no explanation, along with my husband who was also let go. We were newlyweds with no future, at least that is what it felt like.

We rallied and searched for jobs, anything and everything, without success. I got interviews but was always missing the right experience like I was chasing an invisible carrot on a stick. Three months later, my grandpa had dangerous surgery for a broken neck, which he never recovered from but placed him in a nursing home where he remained until he passed away. The surgery took such a toll on him that he wasn’t the same and neither was my grandma. In the wake of his surgery, my “close-knit” family imploded into a civil war, I chose the wrong side by not picking a side and was no longer welcome anywhere. It was a deep murky sea, I felt like I was drowning.

A mentor suggested I take my writing skills from college and put them to good use with a blog and some creative writing to build a resume of experience.

So Muirin Project was born along with Udal Cuain, my way to make sense of all these things I did not understand. I clung to this hope of writing myself out of my misery, and so I wrote and wrote. I worked all day, every day to feel alive again. I wrote a hundred chapters and planned a three-book story. I created maps, character profiles, a journal from a character to foreshadow, and a calendar, and studied Gaelic to make sense of Viking age Ireland. It was a fantastic escape! I wrote for two and half years straight until the characters felt like familiar friends in a cozy world only I lived in and survived by gigs and temporary jobs. I gained a following and a community through the process of sharing. It gave me the confidence I needed to feel like a capable adult again instead of a failure.

I am proud of all that this messy time was able to accomplish. Muirin Project, as my mentor said, would help me land my first real job as an app manager producing content and managing people. It was the real adult job I needed to feel like a provider instead of a burden. Because of how much I grew and life blossomed out of this period, I will forever be grateful to the murky sea for how it taught me in the struggle and built a hunger within me to do more with a confidence I didn’t have before the storm.

In the process of success, seasons change and this is where things got tricky. During this time life led me through a season of moves, a short bout of homelessness, job stress, emotional burnout from family abuse, and waves of depression and anxiety. All these distractions, especially work, pulled me out of my little Udal Cuain world. The site became a burden in my mind, another pressure instead of a joy. And so I stopped posting with the intention of going back. A month passed, and then 6 months, then a year. Then I forgot the characters, and it faded into something I used to do. I ultimately closed the site and let go of my notes from Udal Cuain. It became the thing I was instead of the thing I am. Moving beyond it felt strange, like shedding a skin. Leaving it was heartbreaking.

Was it worth it? Should I have stayed? I don’t know what the right answer is. It was such a good thing until it wasn’t, but I still miss it. I think in some way it was alive with me, in that phase of the struggle, and once I matured past that phase and began understanding life didn’t have to be so hard I didn’t need the same outlet anymore. By writing my pain, and seeing the actions mirrored on the page I learned that family can’t treat you with emotional abuse. It reinforced in my mind that I’m not a failure, but I’m also not stuck in that sea anymore, and so the story needed to change. That was hard.

Does the success still matter even though the site and novel doesn’t exist anymore?

I wish I had a physical copy of it, instead of memories, but yes it does matter because it was a stepping stone on the journey to who I am today and where my passions lie. If you have a past success that maybe didn’t pan out the way you planned, celebrate it! It still matters even if you don’t have the social media highlight reel to show for it. It made you who you are and that is something to be proud of.