Ain't Life Grand

"Ain’t Life Grand?"  These are words I spoke (wrote) last night in a thread on Facebook between myself, my brother and our cousin.  The three of us were having a spirited conversation regarding healthcare, capitalism, markets, reform, government involvement, costs of healthcare, consumer choice, etc......

For the purpose of this post, it doesn’t matter what the specifics were in our conversation; the significance lies in that we were communicating.  I haven’t seen my cousin since the death of my grandmother six years ago and haven’t been able to visit my brother and his family in almost two years.  But it’s very nice that he and I can connect online as we wish.

Some of you may have come to read these words from Facebook where I often provide links.  Some of you may have come directly from Brass and Ivory.  Others of you may have come by way of Twitter.  Or you might be subscribed to my posts directly or have stumbled across MultipleSclerosisCentral.com by way of a Google search.

By the way, how have you come here?  How did you originally find MS Central?

The beauty of social networks is that we can find each other on various websites and communicate in a manner which feels most comfortable.  Two years ago I was barely on Facebook and only “friends” with people I knew in face-to-face “real” life.  Now there are friends all over the globe who I know from various aspects of my life: musicians, schoolmates, colleagues, students, parents of students, family members, bloggers, medical professionals, and many people living with multiple sclerosis and/or rheumatoid arthritis.

For an extremely private and shy person, I have learned to enjoy and thrive upon the connectivity.  I enjoy the community, the people, the support, the information, the camaraderie.  Very much the same reasons I enjoy the community we have here and the community of bloggers from where I came originally to HealthCentral.

As you may have noticed, this Sharepost is not one full of multiple sclerosis information or clever stories.  Just a simple brain-dump.  (That’s what I like to call it when I sit down to talk through my fingers.)  I don’t really view myself as a writer per-se but as a person who shares information and support.  I’m a musician.  I’m a friend.  I’m a sister, a daughter, an aunt, a girlfriend, a teacher, a mentor, a counsellor, a blogger, a patient advocate, and many more things.

If you were to give the freelance writers here a new label, what would it be?  Would you replace the term “Expert” with something else?  If so, what?

I like to learn about others and look at profiles to get a sense of people.  I also look at previously written posts and comments.  Here’s something which I’m sure you do not know.  As an “expert” at HealthCentral, my Home page does not list all of the comments to Shareposts written by other people; only those left on my own pieces.  To know what others are saying elsewhere on the site, I have to go looking for it.  If I have missed you, I apologize.