When I began this blog, I figured I would reach a small audience consisting of people I know and people in the disability community. I wanted to carve out a tiny space somewhere within the vast platform of the Internet to share my thoughts and experiences. I have always loved to write and enjoyed reading blogs on a variety of topics, so I decided it would be an interesting venture to start my own. Since I am so passionate about disability rights advocacy, my plan for this blog was and always will be to shed light on issues facing disabled people from my perspective. However, as I set about writing and realized how much fun it is to have a blog, I knew I wanted to become more active not just in the disability community but also in blogging communities. Writing can show many sides of a person, and I wanted to learn more about blogs much different from my own.
I value the engagement from people in the disability community more than I can ever express, but I began to hope I could reach people who may not have much experience with or understanding of disability; I hoped that if I could provide some insight into the daily lives of disabled people to even one nondisabled person, to someone who doesn’t usually read the sort of topics I write about, that would be incredible. I started to research everything from advocacy organizations to blogging networks, working to contribute and engage with people who both share my passions and who have different ones. While I’ve only been blogging for a very short two months as of today, I’ve connected with amazing people in the disability world, the blogging world, and even the disability blogging world! It’s been such an adventure that is starting to open up doors I only dreamed about while I was an undergraduate.
Just this morning, I received a lovely confirmation that my blog posts have reached beyond anything I imagined: I received a nomination from another awesome blog, Missy Homemaker, for something called The Sunshine Award. Now, this isn’t the equivalent of the Blogging Oscars or anything like that. It’s passed on among bloggers, regardless of the blogger’s niche, as a way to give a shout-out to a writer who you want to recognize or whose writing resonated with you. So although the topic of my blog is quite different from those of many other bloggers I’ve connected with, The Sunshine Award seems to indicate that I’m lucky enough to have had the chance to reach outside my niche. Hopefully, I’ve inspired someone to think in new ways about accessibility and equality based on what I have to say. To me, this is inspiring someone for the right reasons.
I must admit that I worried a bit about writing on topics other than disability, because I truly want to be part of the advocacy community. That being said, while disability rights is a huge part of my life, there are lots of other things that make up who I am that I know I’d enjoy writing about. As it happens, this does relate to advocacy, because one of the key things I advocate for is that disability does not and should not preclude a person from being social, or from recreational activities. I, for one, am just as happy discussing, researching, and writing about disability issues as I am doing things like baking brownies, scouring Pinterest and craft blogs for ideas, or going to a baseball game with my boyfriend. And, I should note that not every person with a disability is as focused as I am on disability issues. This should go without saying, but a disabled person is just like any other person with unique hobbies, interests, and passions.
So, I’m excited to show another side of me. In my next post, I’m going to have a little fun and blog about The Sunshine Award. It involves answering some questions, nominating other bloggers that I enjoy for the award, and asking them some questions. Of course, I’ll intertwine disability as much as I can! But for anyone who’s mainly interested in reading about disability-related topics only, that will always be the topic closest to my heart and the central focus of my blog.
I’d like to pose a question to everyone – not just disability advocates or bloggers. I’m genuinely wondering: Do any of you ever feel conflicted about sharing other facets of who you are with people who are accustomed to knowing you in a particular context? Or if you dedicate your life to something, do you ever wonder what will happen if you spend time thinking or talking about something else? How do you resolve this internally?
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