A Working Name for a Working Moment

There are two names I answer to.

One is the name on paperwork, invoices, course logins, and official forms.

The other is the name I use when I’m trying to tell the truth without turning it into a performance.

Kevin McLaughlin is the legal name. Lugh Sulian is the working name. A name built for the threshold—built for the moments where the old rules stop working and the new ones haven’t earned trust yet.

I don’t treat the second name like a mask. I treat it like a tool.

Not a fantasy identity. Not an escape hatch. A posture.

Skill. Sight. Responsibility carried with awareness.

Before the collapse

For most of my life, I’ve been the person in the background.

The one people don’t notice until something stops working.

The shadow in the corner that keeps the lights on, keeps the place moving, keeps the mess from becoming a crisis.

I’ve worked on building structure, yes—but more often I’ve been the one maintaining it. Holding it together quietly. Making it look effortless so nobody has to think about how fragile it really is.

And for a long time, I preferred it that way.

I didn’t like the limelight. I didn’t want the attention. Even when I ended up there sometimes, I never felt fully comfortable in it.

I’m still not sure I am.

But here’s the strange part: collapse drags the background people forward. When the system fails, the one who always fixed it suddenly has nowhere to hide.

The spiritual thread (without the performance)

I’ve been around Pagan spaces for a long time—long enough to remember when you had to be careful who you spoke openly around, long enough to know the difference between the aesthetic and the practice.

For years I wandered—eclectic, searching, testing pantheons like keys against locks.

Eventually, something settled. Not as a lightning bolt. More like a hearth light: steady, warm, demanding in a quiet way.

What I learned—slowly—is that ritual isn’t decoration. It’s calibration.

It’s how you teach your nervous system what time it is.

It’s how you mark the seasons without pretending you’re above them.

And it’s how you stop trying to bloom in winter.

I write prayers. Short things. Honest things. Things meant to be spoken when the day is done and the mind won’t shut off.

That’s the kind of spirituality that survives collapse: not a performance for anyone else—just a practice that holds you together when your life is under renovation.

Why I started a small business

I didn’t start a business because I had a dream of being a “business guy.”

I started it because I worked as a cleaner for years and I kept seeing the same patterns—over and over—no matter who the employer was.

There was always a chain:

• my employer
• the contractor they reported to
• the customer being serviced

And inside that chain, the same questions kept showing up:

• Why was getting supplies so difficult?
• Why did people fail to get paid when they should have been paid?
• Why was there never enough staff to do the required work?

I couldn’t understand why it was always like that. So I set a goal for myself: find out why.

Then the carousel happened—contracts shifting hands, employers changing, the same building with different logos on the paperwork, the same work with different rules and different “management styles.”

At some point, I decided the only way to really understand the machine was to stand inside the part of it that makes decisions.

So I set a plan in motion to become the contractor.

Not to “win.” Not to dominate. Not to play emperor.

To learn. To see the hidden levers. To understand what I couldn’t see from the floor.

And after about a year and a half of running the business, I learned.

I understood.

My suspicions were right: it wasn’t just one person’s fault.

It wasn’t necessarily the contractor’s fault. It wasn’t necessarily the company’s fault. It wasn’t necessarily the customer’s fault.

It was systemic.

Because everybody wants things done cheaper.

And cheaper has a math to it.

Budgets shrink.

With shrinking budgets come shrinking staff and shrinking supplies.

And then everyone acts surprised when stability collapses.

In the cleaning industry, it’s no wonder stability is hard to keep. It’s built on a structure that rewards cost cutting more than quality.

Boards want profit. How do they get profit? By cutting expenses.

And that doesn’t only happen in big corporations. It trickles down. It becomes the default logic everywhere:

Do more with less.

And then they wonder why the people doing the work burn out, quit, disappear, or can’t hold the line forever.

Work, pride, and the trap of “I can handle it”

Then came the part where I did what people do when they’re trying to survive:

I worked. I pushed. I carried responsibility. I took it seriously.

I built a small business because I wanted control over my own outcomes. I wanted dignity. I wanted a structure that would hold.

And for a while, it did.

But collapse doesn’t always arrive like a movie scene. Sometimes it arrives as a quiet ending—paperwork, silence, unanswered calls, doors that used to open suddenly staying shut.

The ground doesn’t explode.

It just stops holding you.

After the collapse: the ledge

This is where “Standing on the Ledge” began.

Not as a brand. Not as a highlight reel. Not as a “how I won” story.

As a field log.

Because when your structure fails, your mind tries to rewrite everything. It bargains. It loops. It looks for someone to blame. It looks for a timeline that makes the ending feel deserved.

So I started documenting instead.

Shock. Anger. Grief. The strange aftershocks that hit when you stop sprinting and realize you’re still standing.

Some days the writing is raw. Some days it’s practical. Some days it’s just: “I got one thing done. That’s enough.”

That’s what rebuilding looks like in real time.

Why I write this in first person

Because I’m not trying to be a guru.

I’m not trying to teach from a mountaintop.

I’m trying to leave a trail that someone else might recognize when they’re standing in the same place—tired, alert, uncertain, and still standing.

I write for the ones rebuilding after the fall.

Ledge-walkers. Rubble-risers.

People turning scars into fuel—not as motivation porn, but as a practical decision: I can’t undo what happened, so I’m going to build with what’s left.

And maybe—if I’m being honest—writing is my compromise with visibility.

I can speak without needing a spotlight. I can be seen without being consumed by being seen.

The name “Lugh Sulian” (what it’s for)

That name exists for a reason.

It’s the part of me that refuses to rebuild what already failed.

It’s the part that says:

• Don’t chase what won’t choose you.
• Don’t turn anxiety into a scavenger hunt.
• Don’t confuse being busy with moving forward.
• Don’t bargain with reality just to avoid the pain.

And it’s the part that remembers the seasonal rule:

Winter doesn’t ask the forest to bloom.

It asks to conserve. To root. To wait without rotting.

Where I am now

I’m between versions of myself.

Not falling anymore—but not on stable ground yet.

I can see what happened behind me. I can see the distance ahead. Both views can mess with your head if you stare too long.

So I’m doing what I know how to do:

I’m clearing debris. Naming what happened. Putting sequence back into chaos.

And I’m building a scaffold—small steps taken repeatedly—even when I don’t feel ready.

No conclusions offered. No certainty promised.

Still on the ledge. Still watching. Still working the rubble.

Godspeed.