This is not a diary.

"If you're lonely that you need to pour your heart out, come back home"- said my mom after mentioning she went over some of my posts. I'm neither sad, depressed or lonely, but it got me thinking- is this what people who read them see me as?  How could people, and those closest to me be so wrong at trying to get me? How did ever get so misunderstood? Part of it is of course that my family's English is not as good as mine. They may not be able to catch certain nuisances. But the bigger issue is that they have a very limited glimpse into my life. They live in Poland, I'm in America. I call home typically on the weekends, these days I should say every other week. When I do I don't really want to bore them with every single aspect of my day. I'm more interested to hear what's going on back home. Whatever it is that they miss in trying to figure out how my life is doing they get from here. And my blog is not a diary. I don't post simply because something happened to me and I need to vent. I try to present different aspects of my live with disability. Things that I think about happened to me at some point, yes, these are emotions I felt, but these are not issues on my mind right now, front and center. I try to bring up things that I experience or have experienced, but I see rarely discussed. Most of the time these are features on particular aspects, rather than day to day chronicles. I try to give every post a concept or a theme. A lot of them revisit some experience from my childhood. How I felt and what I remember. Often, I contrast it with a perspective from my adulthood. My life is timeline that I skip back and forth. Many times I think of things to write days in advance. Of course on some occasions I have something strange or mean or funny happen that I just have to share with my readers, that pushes back all the upcoming ideas that I have. The "2 Blonde Girls" from last week is a good example. I've experienced a lot of drunk rudeness earlier that night and then went home and wrote about it. Yes, I was angry and annoyed, but mostly it was meant as a point of discussion about how people behave rather than my feelings and attitudes. That I was angry for an hour matters to me less than being able to show you- this is how certain people behave in context of disability. I try to talk about things that I see as issues. Because the more I talk about how my disability affects me, how I see it, how I see others the more you can understand me. My mom thinks that my blog is depressing. And perhaps she has a point insofar you don't see me talk about a fun night I've had at a bar somewhere, met great people or had an amazing dinner. Maybe I should think of incorporating some lighter stories into it. I certainly don't want you to think that I think about Conductive Education all day or visit establishments looking for missing ramps or bikers blocking wheelchair access. But I like spreading awareness. This blog is something I do three times a week. And sometimes I really don't think I have a good topic to discuss. Sometimes I write about something requested or inspired by others. And sometimes it gets in the way. Right now I'm in the middle of something. Let's call it Project X. You may find it silly, but I can't talk about it yet. I feel I only have one chance to announce it properly and I need to have all my ducks in a row.  For now, rest assured I am not depressed. A man walked up to me tonight, and although I didn't quite catch who he was he patted me on the shoulder and said "I read your blog all the time, you're a good guy". Well then, at least somebody likes it.