This post may include Amazon affiliate links.
My First Blog Post: A Keepsake
My very first blog post is one I don’t ever want to lose, so here it is. As I transitioned from my original website to my new site, Gluten Free Respect, (in 2018), this was a post that I had to move with me. While you may not understand it, you will surely see why I hold this memory so close to my heart.
From Dreams to Increase Awareness. . .
As Originally Posted on January 31, 2012 (DSimpsonBooks, my original website that no longer exists)
I have several passions in life, yet time restraints and obligations don’t always allow me to feel that I’m able to give each of them all of myself. My family, of course, tops that list.
Celiac Awareness. Since being diagnosed in September of 2000, and the changes that transpired, I have a need to talk celiac all-the-time. I look back through the years of my life and think, Wow, no wonder I don’t feel settled. I keep thinking a timeline will help me put things in perspective, to show others, Look what I’ve been through. But then, of course, haven’t we all? Isn’t that what life is? Going through things? We all have challenges and successes.
Talking with someone I had recently met, and hearing from her, “You’ve had an interesting life,” and the fact that she was genuinely interested in hearing about it, allowed me to think that maybe I do have a story to tell. So that is part of my effort here, increasing awareness and support through my own life experiences and challenges. This is my dream.
My passion for celiac awareness led me to founding a local support group and then co-founding a larger support group (which I’ll discuss later). Both groups have long since dissolved. My celiac diagnosis and return to good health was followed by the end of a 20-plus year marriage (which I’ll talk about later). A divorce that followed led me back to school to make a career for myself (which I’ll talk about later).
To a Dream to Provide Education. . .
My path to completing my early childhood education degree took time away from my support group, but it didn’t stop the dream wheels from constantly turning in my head, seeking ways to educate others about celiac. This is how ‘Adam’ (my book, Adam’s Gluten Free Surprise) eventually developed (which I’ll talk about later).
To a Dream With My Mom
I woke up this morning with one of those odd feelings you have when you had a dream but just can’t quite remember it. But as I lay in bed, wondering how to develop my blog, while, at the same time, trying to capture that dream that kept giving me goosebumps, a small part came back to me.
That ‘hug’ has me sobbing right now. I have not cried over the loss of my mom in a long time. But it sure was nice to hug her – or – as it was in my dream, someone who looked like her, but in a picture (in my dream) I thought it was me.
I know this last paragraph probably makes no sense to whoever reads it, but maybe it will help me to remember the dream and to hang on to that hug and that feeling that means so much to me during this moment of dawn when dreams still have that impact on our state of mind and being.
Thank You Mom
And so, after lots of wonder over how to proceed, in comes my mom to assist me and to give me focus and direction with this new quest – with my blog. As a mom myself, who takes this position seriously, sillyously, and joyously, I wonder if I would still be here to give my own children (and now grandchildren) those hugs I so cherish if I had not been diagnosed properly with celiac when I was.
2018 Update
I am forever grateful for following through and writing down that dream that had impacted me with such intensity. While that feeling I had when I awoke has long since faded, as happens with dreams, I know that I felt something powerful. And three weeks later, I felt that power of my mom’s presence again, which I credit for that feeling I was so blessed with–that everything would eventually be OK.
I felt she had been with my son, hours before I arrived at the hospital’s emergency room. And as I type this, I have those warm goosebumps again, powerful and strong and loving.
