Starting a Blog

In the beginning of my MS journey, I had many sleepless nights. The steroids kept me wide awake, even though I was beyond exhausted. Laying in bed, my mind raced with panic, anxiety, worry, planning, wondering, making lists, and processing everything that was happening. I texted updates to friends and family and chatted with my parents during rides to and from various doctors appointments, but I could never fully relay what I was going through or process everything that was happening. The thoughts constantly streamed through my head like the never-ending green numbers in The Matrix. The only way to calm my mind was to pluck my thoughts out of the matrix and organize them into a story. I spent my nights writing and rewriting drafts in my head. Over, and over again. Every night.

Should I write a blog? I started contemplating the idea early on, before I was physically able to be on a computer for any length of time. I floated the idea past a couple friends and family and got enthusiastic support. I kept writing drafts in my head every night and started researching how to write a blog, what sites to use, how often to post, and other tips.

I needed a name. Something catchy. I thought of plays on my name and MS, but there are several blogs with similar names. And, I didn’t even know if I had MS. How can you write a blog about MS when you don’t know if you have MS? What if I started it and then months later got a different diagnosis? Should I wait to start? Or use a different name? A broader theme?

I thought of a few other ideas, but none of them felt right. Curveballs? Maybe a play on “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”? Lemonade! That’s cute. Oh, wait, Beyoncé already thought of that. Plus, there is no silver lining to losing your vision, MRIs, a spinal tap, puking. That shit just sucks.

There are so many awful things that happen in life. Divorce, all of 2020, illness, death, loss. Things that are hard, that cannot be sweetened. But, we do them. We do hard things because we must. Because the only other choice is to give up. Instead, we grab the freaking lemons and we just eat them, bitter and all.

Eating Lemons. Boom. It came to me one night, while I was in bed, not sleeping. It was perfect. It was a sign.

The next day, a got another sign. Glennon Doyle posted a video, which felt like she made just for me. I’d read her book, Untamed, and followed her on social media. She loves to say, “We can do hard things.” Basically, we can eat lemons. In this video, she was answering a question she gets asked a lot: “How do I know if I’m a writer?” I’d been wondering this myself. Am I a writer? Can I write a blog? Should I? Would anyone want to read it? Who do I think I am? In the video, she compared wondering if you’re a writer to wondering if you’re an alcoholic. If you’re asking if you’re an alcoholic, you are. People who do not have a drinking problem do not spend time wondering if they have a drinking problem. If you wonder if you’re a writer, you are. People who are not writers, do not spend time wondering if they’re a writer. She said, to me, you know what to write. Start. And so, I did.

I’d spent months wondering if I should start a blog. I watched the video December 1, 2020. That week, I created a website and social media accounts and wrote my first blog post. On December 5, 2020, I published my blog.