Why I Left Medium for 10 Months and Why I Came Back

In any realm of entrepreneurship or creative circle, we hear this saying all the time, and it stands true — success is however YOU define success.

Personally, I saw my Medium platform as successful. I loved the tiny success I was having on this platform, i.e., loves here and there, some claps, about 150 followers, even running some of my own publications. All of it brought me so much joy and fulfillment. So if it wasn’t that I was unhappy — why did I leave for 10 months? I ghosted all of you, the publication, the left-on-read emails, the abandoned Uncomfortable Conversations project — I dropped it all.

Here’s why — during that season of my life, I picked up writing because journaling has always been my outlet in all crisis’s. I started my journey Medium at the peak of COVID-19, and in the meantime I worked in a healthcare call center that burned me out. This platform and some of my writing picked up quicker than I had expected, which gave me hope and a one-way ticket out of my soul-sucking job where people bitched at me just because they could.

Did I jump the gun and immediately quit my job because I needed an excuse to not want to shove my head into a wall every day? Absolutely.

Was that a wise decision given that I had made a whopping $5.00 that did not pay my bills? Absolutely not.

I must also express that I was living alone in Nashville, no roommates, no other source of financial income or help. I was also on some unrealistic manifestation high brought to you and not sponsored by Jen Sincero. Not that she’s NOT a bad ass, but I sure as hell was not, as much as I do try to practice living a more fulfilling, abundant life.

As liberating as writing was becoming, as an amateur, I could not keep up.

I had just gotten engaged and married in a matter of three months. I was madly in love with my husband, broke with no savings, anxious, trying to manage new relationships, trying to coordinate interviews and find time to create new content, trying to find a new job during a pandemic, trying to dispute my eviction notice, AND trying not to cry about my hair turning auburn red from my faded, ten-dollar, brown-colored box dye that I genuinely thought would fix all my problems.

I cringe thinking back to this season of my life, and I still forcefully block out all those memories.

In every single way, I fell flat on my face which stained me with embarrassment and shame.

I failed.

I failed at the one thing I have ever thought I was good at. My one gift I held close to my heart that I could claim as my own— gone. No motivation, pure embarrassment, full of resentment, loss of creativity, and acceptance of never being able to follow through when things got difficult.

All that to say — here’s where I’ve been the past ten months.

I started a small, online record store that also had some small success, and it also failed due to lack of finances to keep it running which sent me into a deeper, “no good at anything, loss of creativity” spiral. I bought an online course on how to start a blog and grow it on Pinterest — also fail.

My husband and I moved to the Raleigh, North Carolina area where we have been adjusting to new scenery and getting on our feet financially. We also just had our first baby. I am recovering from an incredibly painful c-section surgery, and I have been dealing with infection on top of sleep deprivation.

Thank you for welcoming me kindly into motherhood, Life — you son of a bitch.

So where does this leave us, the unfinished projects, this platform, and why now?

Well, I need you right now. And by you, I mean this platform as my safe space — my weighted blanket for the times I have so much anxiety I feel like I’m drowning in an over-flowing bathtub. I don’t want a niche, online courses, or a get rich quick strategy anymore. Even though I do wish I could microwave financial success by writing overnight. I just want my platform back, to write every word that I feel is right, and to create something genuinely meaningful — maybe even write a book filled of just quotes I created that I personally think are beautiful.

I need this outlet to remind myself I still got it. My talent for words or music didn’t dissipate because I fell on my ass, I just didn’t choose it as my first love for a little while because I was hurting and disappointed. And though I am not sure if this will work out and am deeply afraid of failure and returning, I do know that I am ready to try again.

The old projects died. I have mourned and found acceptance of myself in that. But there is new life now — a new season, a new wave of writers wanting to read what I have next, not what I did have.

And what matters, is that I am always willing to try again.

Even if people are rolling their eyes at me for putting my heart on the line over and over again.

And if I, of all people, am able to pick up all the scattered papers filled with unfinished words, dump out the cold, old coffee sitting in the mug, and dust off the wooded desk — can you do the same? And does it help to know, I am fully on-board and standing in the boat with you? No matter if you ghost me, forget, or give-up, or try again at something completely new.

Let me remind you that you still have value, and you can always come back to my platform without shame knowing I have a safe space for you to come and sit at my table — in silence or with welcomed conversation.

Here I am.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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