How Social Media Truly Keeps Us Connected

I have a cousin with cerebral palsy, a disease I know very little about. What I do know is mostly from watching her from afar over the years. Honestly, I never really knew how to relate to her or even how to communicate. She would be at reunions or other family events and I would always try to say hi but never much more. I just didn’t know how to really interact with her.

Over the past few years and greatly because of social media, I have an entirely different perspective on this person. I don’t necessarily see her as often, as we have all grown older and live much farther apart, but I feel a unique connection to her through her writing. Through Facebook and Twitter, I have seen links to her articles that have appeared everywhere from The Altoona Mirror to The Good Men Project and now The Huffington Post. I clicked on an article here and there and soon started reading everything she wrote. The articles all had a unique perspective and helped me better understand her as a person and not someone with this or that disability.

Most recently she was published in The Huffington Post in an article titled, “Reluctant Reliability: A Glimpse Into Cerebral Palsy.” It’s a must-read. I won’t write anything but that. Thanks for sharing, Erin, and thank you Facebook and Twitter for helping me stay truly connected.