Thought Picnic: On why we should all blog

The learning experience

I have just dialled back 5 years on my blog to read of one day in my life where a new reality might have been the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning.

What was significant about that blog was the record of the events of the day before, I was lonely and alone, I could not keep my meals down, I was put on new medication, I was in pain and I conclusively learnt that I had cancer.

In learning I had cancer, I was to go on a regime of chemotherapy having not properly responded to the treatment I had been taking for the first week I was in hospital.

The understanding experience

Even more poignant was the level of consideration that the consultant in charge of my treatment had for me, from reading my moods to giving all the information I needed to understand the kind of treatment that I was have, which commenced 5 days after.

Much as I am thankful for where I am now, the most important thing I would like my readers to take from this piece is why you must blog. For without a blog documenting my days in hospital, my diagnosis, my moods and other trivia of the day, it is unlikely that the minutiae I have so written would have been as vividly committed to memory.

The writing experience

A blog allows you to keep track, keep perspective, keep focus and keep history. In keeping all these things, you have a clear opportunity to count your blessings, review experiences, make reference and maybe even offer encouragement to those who might be experiencing what you have once been through.

I am in my 11^th year of blogging and each opportunity I have had to write, recall, narrate or explain has been like drawing from wells of inspiration, experience, knowledge and observation that never finds utility except when I type away.

Cancer for me is no more shocking news, it has become part of my story, the embodiment of hopes and fears, or carefulness and carelessness, of foolishness and of wisdom, but most of all, it is part of what we call life where some depart and others survive, none the smaller by what they have known, we are all in the fight to stop cancer becoming the story of everyone that lives.

I learnt on that day, now write of that day, five years past. Here’s to life and to blogging our stories better.

The simple fact is, if we don’t write our stories, we are bound to forget some wonderful moments and can become ungrateful for the amazing life journeys we’ve had.