By Last August I got an Instagram direct message from a website that shares the stories of disabled people from around the world. They had seen my posts and wanted me to share my story with their audience. I was thrilled at the opportunity. Explaining that I was a Blogger and I already share my story in blog posts with my audience, I asked them what they wanted me to share with their audience. They didn’t give me a parameter and said I should figure it out. I was very nervous and decided to call my cousin and friend to talk through my nerves.
It turned out that multiple cousins found out about our FaceTime chat and wanted to know what was going on. Once I explained, my cousins were great telling me they believed in me and in calming my nerves so that I could write the next day. Spending most of the next day trying to condense my story proved to be more difficult than I imagined. Eventually I started pulling from previous blog post to tell my story for their website.
At 7:00 o’clock that evening, I nervously sent what I had written to the website. The administrator told me they would publish my story on their website, Facebook page, and their Instagram account. I was so excited! The next day when what I had sent to them wasn’t published. Emailing the administrator to make sure they got it, I was told they did. Weeks went by and it wasn’t published. The next time my chosen brother and journey partner and I caught up in a conversation I told him it hadn’t been published. He told me it was OK and to keep doing what I was doing. The important thing was taking the opportunity given according to him.
Since then, nine months have gone by. I never expected anything to come of it. Saturday afternoon I got a surprise in my Instagram notifications. The website had posted what I had written on their website, Facebook, and Instagram pages. To say I was floored would have been an understatement. It was incredible that people from all over the world were reading my words and getting encouragement from them to positively handle their own disabilities and challenges. What I learned from this experience is to never give up hope and to always take the opportunities that are given to you. Those are great lessons for us all to remember.
