The guy series will be continued, do not fret. This is just a statement that I'd like to make. Comments/discussion would be appreciated.
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Well, hello and salaam, everyone. Welcome back to my humble abode here on Wattpad, where I have noticeably not uploaded since October (COAMG) and December/January (BWL). All my delays between uploads can be attributed to just being busy and not having time to write but for the last eight or nine months, I’ve suffered a massive writer’s block along with having little to no time to write.
Clearly, because I’ve just uploaded COAMG today, I’ve gotten past the writer’s block. But I’ve noticed how much of an impact this last year has made on my writing (and my life) and I just wanted to explain it to you guys but also, share it so that I can tell you about the lessons I’ve learned so that we both learn from this horrible experience. I know there have been multiple occasions when I said I’d upload and would get nearly close to it before something major came up that would completely shake my life and result in my deleting the chapter and starting again with a different tone. I feel as though I’ve really tested my readers’ patience this year and I just want to explain what’s been going on because I think my tendency to not say anything about my personal life results in this mistaken perception that I don’t upload because I’m just not into it anymore.
This past year has been one of the toughest in my life and I’ve had several bad years before. I can’t even begin to articulate the speed and degree at which my life fell apart almost exactly one year ago. Obviously there are so many underlying reasons for why I have these issues to deal with so I’ll go chronologically and attempt to explain along the way.
So last May, in 2013, I met with my guidance counselor at the end of my junior year to discuss colleges. College is a huge deal for most people, but it was especially important for my situation.
As you guys may or may not know, I have a special needs brother who is two years older than me and an eight-year-old sister. A lot of people don’t understand the level at which having a special needs sibling can affect your life. It’s difficult to explain because it’s not just one isolated change that you have in your life. It literally changes your entire life, in every way. And one of the least discussed but most important issues that siblings of disabled people have to consider is who will take care of their special needs sibling after the parents are no longer able to do it.
There are two basic options. 1) Put the special needs person in an assisted care living facility or 2) become the person’s guardian. As you can probably guess, I adamantly choose the latter. There is really no one who can provide my brother the care that he needs the way his family can and he would not do well in an environment where he’s away from his family. We have no brothers to shoulder the eventual responsibility nor do I have any other “normal” siblings except for my little sister who is years away from having a career (she’s not even halfway through elementary school).
So obviously this last year has been huge in deciding what I want to do with my life not just for me but because of how this will eventually impact my brother. Most people have the luxury of making life decisions that will only affect them. I have to study for two people here, because the eventual responsibility will fall on me. My parents are alive and in good health (allhamdulillah) but it’s necessary to make long-term decisions to ensure that there is some sort of plan in case anything happens.
So from May 2013 till now, I’ve had to take those things into account while also making decisions about what I want to do with my life independent of my brother and my eventual familial responsibilities. And it’s been hard. Not just because it needs to be done, but because there were several other hurdles to overcome.
