It’s all about community
It’s a bad MS day today – aches and pains, tired and depressed blah blah! I can’t tell if it’s stress at the current situation we’re all in or just a normal day in the life of an MSer. It is all very depressing. I miss my family, my friends and even the noise outside. It’s not normal. I feel incredibly selfish writing this, there are so many people in a much worse situation than me. But I am so so tired.
I hate having to write what I’ve just written because it’s not like me. But are any of us really like ourselves just now? It’s what this ghastly C-19 is doing to us. So I have to snap out of it, ha! British stiff upper lip and all that. So here goes.
I recently had a comment from a fellow blogger saying he’d only read one post of mine and had liked it so much that he immediately followed me. His actual words were ‘sign of a good blogger’.
I had to read this several times. My first reaction was incredulity! I’ve only been blogging since last September and this surprised me so much. But deep down I was secretly delighted.
I think of how many blogs I’ve followed over seven months and how varied they are. I’ve read so many interesting, loony, helpful and inspirational pieces, and I enjoy feeling part of a community. It’s made me reflect on the reasons why I blog.
When I first had the idea to blog, it was due mainly to the fact that, because of my disability, I spend a lot of time in the house. Back in September when I posted for the first time, I was in a manual chair, which meant that every time I wanted to move anywhere, even in one room, to change the view, somebody had to do it.
So, I was always having to ask, which was not ideal and made me feel dependent, which goes against every fibre of my being, and something I’ve learned hard lessons to accept.
I spent nearly all my days playing computer games on my iPad. So, so boring. I found I was waiting and hoping for someone to drop by to relieve my boredom.
One day I woke up and thought not again. I’d always wanted to blog. I even had a blog already that I hadn’t been near in years, and I wasn’t very good at keeping up with it.
So I jumped into WordPress, and set up a new blog. It took me days, if not weeks, to get to the point where I could publish my first post.
But when I did wow! What a sense of achievement. I thought I would never experience that again but there it was – that feeling of accomplishment. For me this was a major turning point in my life.
Finally, I had a purpose again, and I was determined not to ever let that go. I was doing something with my limited life.
Then I got my power chair and I could move around by myself. What a revelation. This meant I could move from room to room taking my stuff with me, I could write anywhere.
Now here I am 7 months on, and I’ve stuck at at it.
So, there’s the reason why I blog.
It goes back to what I said earlier about being dependent. My writing gives me something which is mine, and which I can choose to share with others if I want to. And the people I share it with are like me (not dependent!) in as much as they are writers who want to share their writing and be part of a community.
When I look at my stats (not often) I notice that I have views from all over the world. That humbles me, but also makes me proud that someone from another country is interested enough to look, and in some cases follow, my blog!
I think this community is all the more important in these strange times. For many isolation is really hard. Hopefully we can all support each other through it.
Tell me what blogging means to you, only if you want to though.
Be kind to one another.
Welcome to Belles Days 