For the past 17 years, I’ve been chasing a dream.

Not a startup IPO. Not a billion-dollar exit. Just one thing: to launch my own app in the App Store.

Seventeen years. That’s older than some developers now shipping their own indie apps. In that time, I’ve started and stopped more projects than I can count. I’ve sketched wireframes in coffee shops, coded into the night after work, tried learning new languages, jumped between frameworks, abandoned ideas halfway through, gotten distracted by other responsibilities–and sometimes, I’ve just run out of steam.

There were dozens of beginnings that went nowhere. Notes in old notebooks. Xcode projects lost to time. GitHub repos full of good intentions and TODO comments. Each time, I told myself “maybe next time” or “this just isn’t the right idea.” And each time I watched others launch, I quietly wondered if I’d ever get there myself.

The truth is, it never stopped mattering to me. Even when life got busy–kids, jobs, burnout–I still carried this tiny ember of hope that someday I’d ship something of my own. Not for money. Not for fame. Just to prove to myself I could finish. That I could take an idea all the way from a blank screen to someone tapping “Get” on their iPhone.

And now… I finally have.

This week, after nearly two decades of trying, I submitted my app to the App Store. And it was accepted.

I keep opening the App Store just to see it there. My app. With a name, an icon, a real page. It still doesn’t feel real. I’ve cried. I’ve smiled. I’ve just sat in silence, overwhelmed.

I know there are people who crank out apps every few months. I admire them. But for me, this moment is sacred. It’s not just about this app–it’s about every failure that came before. Every lesson I had to learn. Every time I kept going, even when it felt like I never would get here.

To anyone reading this who’s still trying, still failing, still dreaming: don’t give up. Your timeline doesn’t have to match anyone else’s. Your path might wind and stall and break and restart. But if it matters to you, keep going.

Because one day, your app might just show up in the App Store. And I promise–it will feel like everything.