October 5th, 2016

It’s been exactly a year today, since I had the idea of possibly making a blog. I remember that day perfectly, I was in Vancouver visiting family. And I received one of the nicest comments on Instagram about one of the photos I posted and how confident I look walking with the white cane. And even added, how I made it look so cool and how it was just like an added accessory to my outfit. But what really made me happy was when she told me how I inspire her to face her fears and deal with vision loss. To embrace life regardless of the eye condition she has. From there, the comments and messages came more often and even from others around the world. The feeling of meeting so many amazing people with different types of eye conditions made me want to do so much more. To build a little outlet of where we can all fall back on, to just feel inspired and motivated to keep going and still reach our goals and dreams. More importantly, I wanted an outlet for anyone feeling alone out there, going through the same or similar condition as me.  Because I have been there, so I thought the idea of making a blog. To have this for all of you to just follow my journey outside of Instagram. For you and everyone to feel connected with me and others who I built that friendship with. And share their stories and their journey. My blog is for us all.

A year has passed, wow. A lot has happened. A lot of ups and downs. Tears and laughs. It’s really true when they say a lot can happen in a year. And as much as it was a struggle and lots of battles faced, it has been one of the best years of my life. To be able to come this far with being close to completely blind and now dealing and learning to accept my hearing loss as well. It really is still one of the best years of my life. The work I put in with giving back to the visual impaired community, the new adventures and going out of my comfort zone to try new things and reach for the goals I had set for this year, it was all done. It was all done!

Since it’s been exactly a year for me, I want to take this blog and start fresh. Start new and set new goals. It doesn’t have to be New Year exactly to start fresh and brand new. This is my new year, my brand new start. I can always go back to my Instagram posts and relive my past. But this is all new. New adventures and just new everything! I’m so excited to start sharing my thoughts, adventures and just everything with all of you.

And so with that, lets cheers to my first blog post.
Tomorrow, I will be celebrating big.

Stay Blessed,

Ate Mara