As I write this first blog post, the site on which it will be published is bare and most likely very boring to any visitors who may stumble across it. For me, however, it is already an achievement. I have already tried blogging twice before, and this is my third attempt at doing so, hence the name of this blog. Before today, I always dismissed it. I never had the confidence to write about my life, primarily because disability and being in a wheelchair can be about as enthralling as watching paint dry. So why – you may ask – have I contradicted myself? The answer is simple. Life brought me here.

The last year has been eventful for me, but said events have largely been far from positive, to such an extent that the document I’ve written about it for close friends currently stands at 11 pages (with more still to come!) I’ve sunk to serious emotional depths and left the counsellor’s door constantly swinging on its hinges for months on end. At this stage, I am just beginning to move past what prompted my despondency, so in this first post I hope you won’t mind if I don’t go into detail. Indeed, my mission with these first words is an altogether more uplifting affair.

I want to say thank you. Thank you to my counsellor, who helped to lift part of a weight from my shoulders over endless cups of tea (always with two sugars). Thank you to my many friends, each and every one of whom I am eternally grateful for. You helped me to forget when I so badly needed to, even when so many of you were completely in the dark about the whole thing. Thank you to my family, who despite their own frantic worries respected my wish for them not to know anything about my predicament, because they wouldn’t have understood. I even want to thank the person who is the reason for my pain for a different year that was the happiest of my life. I will always be sorry for how things ended between us, and I hope you realise that I could never think badly of you. You are my hero and memories of our friendship continue to light up my world – you are still a ray of sunshine when my life is grey.

Until next time,
Mason