Just over
five years ago I sat down, opened my laptop and tapped out the very first entry
onto this blog. I could have never predicted what would happen next.
I believed
it would be a bit of a lark, a small adventure in writing that a few people
would read and that would quietly fade away over time as my attention – and theirs
– was diverted by other things.
I did not
know, and could not have known, that it would change my life.
Five years,
over 1000 blog posts and countless memories later, I am most certainly not the
person I was when this blog began.
I was then a
married stay-at-home mom of an eleven year old daughter. I hadn’t really
written in years, and I had, to a great extent, lost touch with who I was.
Today I am
divorced, with an active career in communications and media relations. My
daughter will turn 17 this year and has begun looking at universities. And now
I write not only for pleasure and passion but for pay.
How things
can change in just five years!
This blog
was the catalyst for those changes in my life. In the course of writing it I
learned so very many lessons. Some were fairly easy. Some were difficult. And
some were painful.
Someone said
to me recently that they had no idea I had been going through a divorce while I
was writing these posts, and I suppose that was because for the most part I had
kept that part of my life out of the blog. And that was by design, not
accident.
While this
blog was about my life in Fort McMurray, it also became a blog about Fort
McMurray. I had inadvertently created a personal brand (realizing this the
first time someone introduced me as McMurray Musings, as the blog name had now
become a persona). I had created a niche, but as anyone who has spent time in a
niche knows, on occasion it can become a bit cramped and crowded when the
chance has come to grow.
Over the
last few months I took inventory of my life. I thought about the person I was
when this blog began, and who I am today. I thought about all the opportunities
this blog has given to me, and all the things I have learned. And I thought
about all the growth I had experienced, and one realization was crystal clear:
I had outgrown the niche I created in this blog.
Today will
mark the final McMurray Musings blog post. I have no intention of quitting
writing or blogging, and you can find my new website at the link below. I will
on occasion still write about Fort McMurray, but the time has come to write
about other topics, too; like the divorce I never wrote about, like realizing
your child is almost an adult, like life as single woman and like the very
human existence we all experience.
While I
recognize I could write about those things in this blog I realized I wanted
this body of work to stand alone. This blog was always dedicated to tales of
Fort McMurray, of my life here and the adventures of life in a northern town.
To change direction on this blog would be to damage the spirit in which it
began five years ago, and in which I have taken pride ever since.
I owe so
much to all my readers, including even the ones who sent me hate mail as it
toughened me up to the point where I am rarely bothered by anything anymore.
The experience of writing this blog and sharing my life in this manner prepared
me for my subsequent adventures, and I would not change one single thing about
the experience. I hope some of you will come along for the next adventure and
follow my work on my new website, which includes a new blog as well as a
showcase of my freelance work. But for those of you who choose to end the
journey here, I have but two simple words: thank you. Thank you a million times
over for coming along on the ride at all, whether you read every single blog
post or only once in a while.
To
everything there is a season, and this spring season is the time to say goodbye
to McMurray Musings. I will always carry McMurray Musings with me, as that
persona and brand became an integral part of who I am – but it is time to move
on to the next phase, and the next chapter. I do so not with sadness, but with
excitement, and with deep gratitude for all this blog has given to me – far more
than I ever gave to it, to be honest. And I do so with joy, because being
McMurray Musings for five years has been an incredible gift – and it made me
ready to embrace being Theresa E. Wells, communications and media relations
professional, freelance writer - and yes, a blogger, too.
To everything there is a season, and a
time to every purpose under the heaven; this is a new season and I have a
renewed sense of purpose. I am, at the end of it all, simply so very grateful
to have shared this adventure as McMurray Musings with you.
Thank you – and in the future you can find me at: