Why I Disappeared? – An Open Letter

Over the last few months, I had lost a huge percentage of my readership being inactive in the blogosphere. I had neither blogged nor had been active in social media. But I wanted to write this post for the people who still remember me and check the blog now and then to see if I’ve published something. I feel grateful when I still receive messages from you asking why I disappeared. Your concern and belief keep me going. Let me share with you today where and how have I been lately!

So where did I disappear?

This isn’t very easy to answer given that what I went through is very sensitive to write about, or at least I’ve always considered it that way. It’s hard for me to open up. But now, I don’t have a choice. I can either take a step forward or sit back home as a blogger who had quit and I definitely don’t want to be the latter. I could just tell you I had personal issues and then move on with the posts but I don’t want to stay in your mind as this writer who goes on and off, without a proper reason. Hence, I decided to blog about it. I got my mother’s consent before writing it down here.

Mom and her health

My mother had been diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder and has been going through a very tough phase of her life and I look after her. My parents and I share a huge difference in age (generation gap) where they’ve hit their 60s and 70s respectively and I still am in the early twenties. If not for my mother’s decline in her health, our lives would have been entirely different. But I don’t regret anything, to be honest. This has only made me better.

My mother has RA and that lead to osteoporosis, even under treatment over the years. She had to be hospitalized many times in the span of the last few years. Sometimes, planned visits and stays – like getting surgeries done whereas the other times, as an emergency. It took a toll on her and as much as it affected her, it affected us. But she didn’t lose hope. With constant physio and proper diet, (and a healthy amount of sarcasm towards me :) ) her conditioned improved. She started walking again in January 2018 after months of bed rest in 2017.

Ankle fracture and recovery

When we just thought she had started walking with the help of her physio, the unfortunate happened. She had broken her ankle bone just while walking and her doc said it was a stress fracture. I still can’t erase the day from my mind. It has a bad impact on me because it wasn’t easy to see a person, that too your mother, break bones for no reason – fall again – over and over after every slight improvement we hoped on. By the time she fractured her ankle, she was just recovering (and trying to walk) from a previous surgery (hip replacement) and my mother had hardly walked in the last two years.

Six months after the ankle fracture recovery, In July 2018, she had to be hospitalized once again and stay there for weeks (which was our last long-hospital stay) as the implant site got infected and they wanted to get it removed. Again, a few more months of bed rest followed up.

Bedridden is the word I hate to use on her but I don’t think it’s anything to be ashamed about. She had been a very active person in her early years and so, it’s harder for her to live this life. But I’m glad she’s strong enough to overcome this – whatever that happens in her life. Only a very few people in the blogosphere know this. They’ve always been in touch with me through emails checking about my mom’s health.

So I took a break. Could I have done it better?:

I sometimes still wonder if it was my mistake. Could I have still blogged when I was simultaneously caregiving my mother? Could I have still done justice to my business, been regular with stock preparation and dispatch? I do think a lot about such things. But no, in reality, it wasn’t possible (at least for me) one bit. I couldn’t look at my mother this way and then come back to the blog to write about the longevity of a lipstick or how much my hair had grown. (We stayed in the hospital most of the time, to the extent it felt like home for us)

I respect people who can still do this – going through the worst in their lives but still pursuing their passion. It isn’t an easy task. But when it comes to me, I wasn’t a very strong person that time since everything was still new to me. I was adjusting to my new lifestyle. The staff I hired wasn’t very loyal to me and I couldn’t make up my mind to hire people to go on with the stock preparation etc when I was away. I failed to take new orders, deliver the existing orders on time and I still regret it. More than losing the brand reputation, I regret that I disappointed many of you.

How did my life change?:

Earlier, I had my mother looking after me, even spoon-feeding my food when I blogged or worked on the business like a crazy person. It used to be a very lively phase of my life – my teenage. I never thought I would get into a business that young but it was possible when I had no other responsibilities. But my life turned entirely different when the roles reversed. Suddenly, I had to look after the family, I had to look after my mother and when my dad still helped me (very much) he had to be there for mom. He goes out to dispatch the parcels, he helps stock the ingredients and he also helps mom most of the time.

Do I regret taking a long break?:

We did and we still do our best to make her walk. After being in a bed rest for the last four months (after her last surgery) she walked with the help of her walker yesterday. And this really gave me some hope. Hope that she will be able to walk again. Hope to get back to work, write again and go back to my teenage years. What all we went through – I believe this has only made me stronger and I don’t regret any of the months I spent looking after my family.

I did missing blogging – yes. More than that, I feel bad that I couldn’t do justice to the business. This gives me an immense amount of guilt. I apologized to each one of you for my fault already and I assure this won’t happen again. But at the end of the day, I don’t regret taking a break. I don’t regret falling into depression and getting over it. It was all much needed. It made me immune to life.

Where did I go wrong?:

The only regret I carry is that I neglected myself. I boxed myself inside a very small circle and went into depression whereas I could have lived for myself more, even blogged about my life (after all, it’s where I can talk) and I believe that would have helped me so much to stay lively. Talking about personal life on the blog somehow felt uncomfortable for me (especially about my mom and caregiving) as I thought it wasn’t a good idea. I was wrong. Staying away from everything put me into depression; I lost interest in everything; never shopped; never dressed up, stopped doing things I loved and over time, I realized I wasn’t doing justice to my parents too.

At this point of depression, as a caregiver, I sucked. That’s when I realized if I don’t love myself and live of myself, I can’t live for others. Be it business, personal life or whatever, I would have ended up as a permanent failure if I failed to come out of that phase.  But now I’ve understood the importance of self-love and also that this (blogging) is the only way I communicate with the world (being a loner) and I look forward talking to you all about my life, my routine and what I do in a day-what I eat in a day kind of stuff. This will also help people like me (the young caregivers, the ones who’re depressed, the ones who are just as weird as me) out there to stay hopeful about life. I live for myself more now – I take breaks from work and home, I go out, see the world and here I’m sharing a few glimpses of my recent past. (Yet to do long solo-trips though. Coming soon!)

What am I doing now?:

Now that I feel much more alive, I’m now in the process of regaining the trust of my readers and especially, the customers who believe in my product. I had delivered most of the pending orders and also have been sending complementary product for the delayed/missed orders and I still am working to improve your shopping experience. I plan to move out and open a small manufacturing unit near my residence so that I’ll be able to maintain a better work-life balance. My parents are not going to be very supportive of this decision but I’ve made up my mind. I need my own space, to stay sane.

What has changed in the blogosphere?:

So much has changed. Now that Youtube has taken a major role in everyone’s life, I see many bloggers losing their enthusiasm to write – which is really saddening. I open many of my favorite blogs in the hopes of reading new content and I almost, always end up disappointed. That’s when I realized what I was doing to my readers. I do watch youtube videos too but I wouldn’t agree that blogging is dead. As long as there is love for writing and reading (and photography) blogging is never going to be dead. I am thinking to write on this topic too; if at all it makes one blogger write again, I’ll be the happiest.

Don’t panic – I won’t bother you with only these posts. I’m aware of the niche and I’ve lots of share with you in the coming days – my shopping hauls, product reviews, solo-travel experiences etc. I also will be sharing my hair care routine and things like that. You can suggest me topics if you’ve something in mind!

When I can’t promise anything about my consistency in posting, for now, I can assure you that I’ll put my effort to make every post worth-reading. I also would like to hear from you about how your life has been. You can write to me in the comment section below or email me. I’ll talk to you in another post soon! Once again, thanks for reading and it keeps me going. Thanks for trusting me and being supportive when I failed to trust myself. I owe so much to all of you!