It’s over.

I’ve fallen out of love with my first startup. It was a taker. (You know how unhealthy those relationships are.) I gave and gave and gave. And when I asked for something, just a little thing, in return… Nothing.

I lived in denial for a year (2010). I kept plugging along as if nothing had changed. Then I got sick for a year (2011), so it was easy to pretend that that was why the flame was burning low. Then I got healthy again (2012). And, finally, this year, I had to face the fact that I’d lost that lovin’ feeling for good.

Because of that (and some other shit I won’t go into), I’ve been a bit lost for most of this year. Depressed. Feeling like a failure. Feeling too old and tired to start again. Like ya do. I moped around and was a cranky bitch for months. (My poor husband.) When my strength, energy and stamina all came back this fall, I realized I was all dressed up with nowhere to go.

Which made me mad.

I whined to my husband that I needed a new project. I said it over and over. Out loud to him. Silently to myself. To my girlfriends over coffee. To my girlfriends over beer.

Apparently, my brain heard me. (You gotta love the human brain.)

One night in October I was lying in bed wishing I could fall asleep, “thinking” (overheating brain thinking, you know, hundreds of thoughts at once, all tangled up and ricocheting off each other), when suddenly there was a perfect storm in my head.

Bored and disenchanted with the web for a couple years, not blogging much about it, wondering if my tech blogging days were over and what would become of me, but wait, the web is boring me to tears but I’m getting a pretty big kick out of mobile apps these days, and I wish more of my friends used them, they don’t know what they’re missing, but I can’t write about them on any of those big tech blogs I write for, not what they’re looking for.

Just back from three weeks in California, could still smell the wild wild west on me, feel it running through my veins, clinging to it hard, harder than usual. I’ve lost my mojo, need to get my sass back, nothing makes me feel sassier than my red cowboy boots…

At which point the quaint and kitschy expression “Cowgirl Up!” came to mind.

And then it all just gelled.

I would put on my sass, get back in the saddle, create a place to write about apps, and call it “Cowgirl App!”.

I thought the domain name could not possibly be available, considering the wide use of the expression in cowgirly parts of the US. I was sure some geekette in Austin had it. So I didn’t check for a day or two, postponing the inevitable disappointment. But when I did, it was there and then it was mine. And so was the Twitter handle. And so was the gmail…

So for a week or two I let the concept coalesce in the background while I went about my business. As soon as it started to crystallize, I knew I needed a co-cowgirl and exactly who it had to be. Sent her an e-mail pitch to which she responded immediately and enthusiastically (“FUCK YES!”).

Nothing like love at first sight.

Ladies and gents, meet Cowgirl App!