When I was thirty-one, I sat on my couch and stared at a completed cross stitched piece that had taken me nearly half of my life to complete.

This is the photo I took that day in 2006:

I had been told that it was too advanced for me. I was crazy for even attempting it. Why would I have ever wanted to try stitching such a complex piece with so many colors, sometimes using two colors at the same time in a single stitch?

For one simple reason: I thought it was beautiful.

That's why I would stitch anything, right? Because I liked how it looked.

As I sat there staring at my fabric, I realized what a journey this project had made with me:

• I'd stitched it in high school.

• I'd stitched it in my dorm room in college

• I'd stitched it surrounded by friends, laughing as we shared cozy evenings together.

• I'd stitched it alone, through tears as friendships had dissolved.

• I'd stitched it at my overnight work shifts.

• I'd stitched it traveling back and forth from Boston to Montana during college breaks.

The Castle recorded the first decade of my adult life - as I went from high school to college to my first (and second) apartments, to falling in love with my boyfriend, to moving in together, to purchasing our own house together.

Each life event had its emotions stitched into this piece, X by individual X.

To this day, it sits on the wall right outside our bedroom, proudly reminding me that I ignored all of the people that I wouldn't be able to finish such a crazy, complex piece. I ignored them. I stitched it anyway.

It took me nearly 12 years- but I finished it. I persevered.

It was an early lesson that if I put my mind to it, I could do anything.