My Journey Through The Blogosphere

I first started blogging in 2011 when I was a sophomore in college. At that time, I didn’t know what I was doing. I just wrote whatever came to me. This included life as a college student, music, books, travel, and eventually, my disability. There are days when I miss that blog, lifeintheblueridges. I miss the freedom of it, the peace of mind. I made connections with hundreds of people, some of which I still have today (I’m talking to you, Arianna and Cassie, if you’re reading this). I miss the level of connection and community I felt within the blogosphere. And for those of you who have stuck with me since the beginning, thank you. I am grateful, honored, and no amount of words could convey just how much you mean to me. My first blog felt like home, but over time, as I graduated from college and moved on to graduate school, my blog was no longer at the forefront of my life. At the time, I didn’t give it much thought. But now, thinking back, I regret not making it a priority. I get that life comes first and it’s okay that I put my career first, but writing should have been in the running for first place too. It’s always been my haven, my safe place, and the one place I felt 100% myself, but then I stripped it away without even really thinking about what I was walking away from.

When I graduated from college, I created this blog. I had read somewhere that finding a niche in the blogging community could increase traffic to your blog. So I did that for a while. I no longer wrote daily. It was a tiny accomplishment if I managed to write even one post every few months. I primarily wrote disability-related posts. And while some of the posts were incredibly cathartic, I didn’t feel the same level of community and connection I used to when I first became a part of this community back in 2011. I felt like I was writing for other people, rather than myself. And I know from experience what a tricky path that is to go down. It puts you at risk for losing yourself, and I think that’s what may have happened with me over time.

I don’t know if the blogging community has changed or I have. Honestly, it’s probably been a mixture of both. I know one thing, though. I miss it. I miss coming to an empty page daily and just writing whatever came to me as I did when I first started blogging. Sometimes, that was just a music video or a quote from a book I was reading, but it was me. It was authentic. My writing ebbed and flowed with my moods, the seasons, and life in general. Back then, I didn’t just post when I felt like I had something to say. I posted even on the days where I felt like I was trudging through mud and had no idea where to even start. I wrote anyway.

More than anything, I wrote for me. I wrote what I was feeling and what was in my heart. I didn’t have moments as I do now where I think, “What are other people going to think of this?” and “What kind of lesson or story am I trying to get across with today’s post?” Though there is nothing wrong with posing those questions before sitting down in front of the blank page, in my experience, it’s limiting. It put me in a box. A box that initially was comforting. However, eventually, I just couldn’t do it. I’m realizing now that those limitations kept me closed off from the community I so badly wanted to immerse myself in.

So, today, as my friend Arianna would say, I’m making the choice to show up. I’m pushing away thoughts of “Will others like this?” or “Will this post drive traffic to my blog?” As I’m learning, those questions don’t matter. Writing is what I love. I first started blogging solely for that reason. And I think it’s common to drift away from reasons you may have started on a journey in the first place. It was never about others. It was about me, writing from my heart, and feeling grateful when others connected with my words.

So even though I don’t know where my blog will go from here, I know one thing. It will be 100% authentically me. If we can’t be authentic and 100% ourselves, what’s the point, anyway?

What Blogging Means to Me as Someone with a Disability

Writing has always been a comfortable outlet for me. Maybe because I feel more true to myself when I write than when I try to vocalize my emotions or connect with people in-person. As a child, books and words meant safety. As a got older and experienced numerous surgeries related to my Cerebral Palsy, writing was once again the outlet I immediately went to because I felt like no one would understand the stream of consciousness going through my anxious, but inquisitive mind. I didn’t have my first surgery until I was 11, but I have this clear image in my mind of sitting on the brown couch in the den of my childhood home after my first surgery with a yellow legal pad on my lap and a pen in hand. I may have had both of my legs in bright blue casts with a yellow bar in the middle, making it difficult to move, but I didn’t let that stop me from doing the one activity that has always set my soul on fire.

Even then, I wrote stories about myself. The story of waking up in the ICU after surgery. The story of experiencing Christmas from inside the four walls of a hospital. The story of weekly visits from therapy dogs. The story of how bi-weekly arts and crafts were the only time where I forgot, if even for a minute, that I was in the hospital and about to undergo a surgery that eventually lead to nightmares, panic attacks, and sent my imagination into overdrive. But those stories weren’t just stories. They were my life. They were a chance to process through the fear, anxiety, and pain I was feeling without having to figure out how to speak my feelings out loud. They allowed me to revisit the experiences, while also being able to act as a spectator within my own life.

I think that’s why blogging has been so helpful for me over the years. It’s been an escape, while also being the place where I found my voice, became part of a community, connected with other people and families with disabilities, and found a place I belonged.

I’ve spoken about belonging before in the sense of being someone with a disability. To put it bluntly, it’s hard. The world is not made with disabled people in mind. Besides the topic of physical access, there are also areas of education, housing, employment, and access to healthcare. Each of those areas are much, much different experiences for someone with a disability than they are for an able-bodied person. In regards to education, I had to be sure the schools, colleges, and graduate schools I attended were accessible to me. For me, that meant small schools (since walking long distances was hard), limited walking distances between classes, and in the case of college, finding a school with a substantial disabled student population (so I could be sure they had resources I might need). For housing, it meant finding an apartment complex willing to install grab bars in the bathroom so I can easily get in and out of the shower. Employment-wise, it might finding a company to work for that was comfortable with and supportive of my disability.

Often times I feel like I spend so much energy figuring out to live in a world not made with me in mind that there’s no energy left to reflect on the positive things my disability has given me. For instance, I don’t know if I would have become a writer were it not for my disability. Growing up, I wanted to find something to do that I could enjoy that my disability wouldn’t hold me back from. For me, the answer was writing. Short stories, fiction, poetry, song lyrics….and eventually blogging about my life. It’s a place I’ve always known I’ve belonged…the writing community, that is. The blogging community. Right here, with all of you.

So, thank you. Thank you for giving me a home in this crazy, frustrating, but beautiful world we live in. Thank you for encouraging me to come back to blogging. Thank you for the comfort, support, and love. But most of all, thank you for reading. My number one goal as a writer has always been to relate to just one person or have one person’s perspective changed as a result of my words. That, to me, is the ultimate dream. And you wonderful readers have given that to me time and time again. It’s because of you that I keep writing. And because for me, writing is and always will be my oxygen, my passion, and the one place I feel at home.