I seem to be starting all my blog post since 2018 with “I’ve not written in a while” or “I’m going to start writing more”. Then I don’t. If anything, I write less and less. I’ve been trying to work out why that is. It’s not like I don’t have anything to say. Recently I’ve been transferring my Tumblr content over to my site and reading my old entries. I think it’s been good for me.
When I started writing initially I felt so alone. I used writing as a thought process to digest what was happening in our lives as well as a means to update friends and family. It was my journal. Then, gradually, I gave more and more to social media and, by doing that, I met more parent of SEN and medically complex children. I realised I wasn’t alone. I also become inundated with blog style accounts posting regular updates. I guess, thinking about it now, I started to feel overwhelmed and a bit like nobody is interested in our story, because everyone I knew had their own story.
Teamed with that some things started to happen in our life which I didn’t want to share so publicly (and still don’t) meaning the line got blurry for me. I wasn’t sure anymore what I did or didn’t want to share about our lives. Once that happened I couldn’t seem to untangle it all. I also felt like Freddie was stable and I wasn’t constantly writing about hospital admissions or ambulance call outs. That had been the main thing I was updating friends and family on, in the early days following diagnosis. I wasn’t even sure if people cared anymore.
Anyway, since going through my blogs about Freddie from 2017 it’s dawned on me how mundane some of them were; summaries of our week, outline of therapies, milestones updates etc. I’m not sure I even update people regularly on those things in real life anymore let alone do I write it anywhere. It’s not like things don’t happen, that our story isn’t evolving. It is continuously. We still have regular appointments (even during lockdown), I’ve spent 20 weeks trying to obtain an Educational Healthcare Plan so that Freddie can start a mainstream school, we have extensive building works done so that adaptations could be made for Freddie. On top of that we’re still trying to juggle how we’re supposed to live this life, how it’s best to support Freddie Cheese but also how is best to raise awareness and advocate, not just for him, but for children like him full stop.
Taking all of that into account, and trying to put into perspective how ‘busy’ I always tell myself I am (I’m too busy to write, I don’t have enough time – a few of my come backs when people ask about the website or my blog) I think it’s time I try to make an effort to write. I used to find it incredibly therapeutic and I’m sure I would if I started up again. Sometimes it might be a little mundane, some of it might be playing catch up so I can fill in the blanks. Let’s just see how it goes shall we? What’s the worst that can happened?
