I am Here. I am Now.

I’m kind of in shock. My blog stats say I just passed 1,000 views of my blog (and more than 300 visitors). This is since early September, when I first started sharing my Brain Grape journey.

I can’t compute those numbers. I’m even struggling to believe them. But doing things like counting views and visitors are pretty basic website stats. So I have to believe that WordPress has a fairly reliable method for determining those.

Yes I’ve been texting many people about my blog. Yes I’ve shared it a few times on Facebook. Yes I even have 10 people who have subscribed!!! This means they get an email every time I post (thank you!). (You can subscribe at the bottom/side of each page by entering your email address in the black box labeled “Subscribe”)

The reason I titled this post “Under Pressure” is that it’s finally clicking that I actually have an audience for my writing. Wait. People are actually reading my writing. People are *choosing* to take time out of their days to read my writing!! That means I need to do a good job. 

I am amazed that my writing is engaging people and making them think. Today I briefly spoke on the phone with my partner’s father about my post about “Ability vs Disability.”  I later had the impression that I was going on a book tour, but it’s about a book that I have not yet published. It’s still in progress.

For those of you who don’t know me well, I am a natural introvert. I process things by writing. So it makes sense for me to be putting my thoughts into this blog. What feels really strange is to have an asynchronous conversation about my writing either via comments or texts with friends and family. Writing has always been an independent activity for me. I’ve kept a journal since I was in middle school and I certainly never discussed it with anyone. I’ve had a private blog for more than 9 years, and only shared it for the first time with a few people earlier this year.

So to suddenly go from writing in isolation to actively promoting my writing, in some cases to people I only just met, feels so foreign to me. And yet on some level I know it is what I want. I have long wanted to share and tell my story. What you have seen so far has been a relatively superficial layer. The story that is still hiding underneath is of the wounds that lurk in my mind. I ultimately want to share more of my health history. My goal is to reduce my own stigma and ultimately to try to create a safe space for others to share their stories. My dream is that together we can find a way to co-create a world where all our journeys have meaning and value.

And no I am not going to become a social media influencer. No, I do not aspire to have a content creation empire or whatever fancy people call their worlds.

I just want to create a safe space where all of us can be as we are. Present in this moment both alone and together.

Sending love into the world 🌎 💜

I am here. I am now.
You are here. You are now.
We are here.  We are now.
💜

“Under Pressure” by Queen

https://youtu.be/a01QQZyl-_I?si=Am6lpZT28vd4XAuE