A little piece of heaven

I’ve decided to expand this blog to new horizons. Thus far it’s been all about our journey with Nathan and learning how to deal with the world of special needs. I’ve mostly talked about our emotions, equipment, therapies, nutrition, and other aspects of having a disabled child.

This week I’ve decided to talk about my previous passion, the one I had before Nathan was born: Internet Marketing & Search Engine Optimization.

Back in early 2000, I took a break from college and found a job for a semester. It was at an internet marketing firm. I found myself fascinated by it and wanting to know more and more and more. This was a company in the “cutting edge” of the internet world at the time and they were building quite a network of sites. When I started with them they were running about 30 sites – by the time I left 3 years later, we were running and promoting over 4000 different websites. Their focus was on using Google, Yahoo, and other search engines to drive traffic to their websites, which offered a variety of products and services.

I started my own business in 2002, consulting at nights and weekends. It took off and after 1 year I had too much work to be able to afford to keep my job 🙂 And it all grew from there. I started attending the SEO conferences, met all the gurus, traded secrets, tried out a variety of methods, learned everything from the “white hat” to the “black hat” techniques, in fact I helped create many of the industry standards today. I was always the shy type so I never made a name for myself, but all of the people who did, know me and know of me.

You might be wondering what exactly it is that I do? Search Engine Optimization revolves around methods to gain high rankings in search engines for desired keywords. So if I decided I wanted to sell “pink ribbons”, I would start a website selling pink ribbons, and then “work my magic” so that when people type “pink ribbons” into Google, Bing or Yahoo, my website appears at the top – not the sponsored, paid results, but the “organic” results coming from their algorithms. Of course I am also skilled in managing Pay Per Click campaigns, but my specialty is in the organic results.

This all probably sounds like mumbo-jumbo, especially after I’ve been talking about such different things on this blog for the last 3 years. But there’s a good reason why I decided to include these posts in the blog. It comes down to $$$$.

Taking care of a child with special needs is EXPENSIVE! Therapy costs, medical bills, equipment bills .. I don’t have to say it, all of you know it already. I know a lot of families then decide to try and find alternate sources of income..and of course, the obvious way to do it is online. It requires finding things to do/sell on the internet while we are home caring for our kids. And then the question always arises – how? If I create a website, how do I get people to visit it? Where do I get traffic?

And this, my friends, is my pre-Nathan obsession. It’s what I’ve done for 10 years. I am supremely good at it (excuse my lack of modesty 😉 It’s like 2nd nature to me, after working on literally thousands of sites/projects. I can do/talk SEO in my sleep.

So to wrap up this post. I’ve decided to start sharing articles, knowledge, resources about search engine optimization and internet marketing. For those of you that already have websites that you are trying to promote – you may choose to use this information to help you. If you don’t like this new “horizon” of Nathan’s blog – please skip all of these posts!

Also, as I venture into some of the “new” areas of internet marketing, such as social media marketing, I will share what I am learning. Since Nathan’s birth I’ve had little time to stay up to date with new techniques. But now that Nathan is older and in school, and things are much more settled with him, I plan on going back to the “research” stage and expanding my skill set to all of the “new media” techniques that are now out there. Hence my post about Twitter the other day.

My goal for this new category of Nathan’s blog: to help empower and support other families to gain greater financial stability and success. Perhaps this information may help you create/increase revenue streams which you can then use in taking care of your child with special needs.

I hope you guys enjoy this new chapter of Nathan’s blog.

I was taking the dogs for a walk last night at the park and just reflecting on the day. I love being out late at night with the dogs under the stars and moon – it’s my favorite time to go for a walk, the open skies take me “out of myself” and I just feel wonderful.

The park was completely abandoned so as I walked, I talked out loud to Belle. I was telling her about her brother, the story of his birth and the story of his first year.

And as I walked and talked the strangest thing happened to me – I started weeping. It wasn’t just the tears slowly tricking down your cheeks kinda crying, it was the weeping/bawling kind of crying. It was the weirdest thing because I had absolutely no idea why I was crying. I’ve never been happier in my whole entire life, I have absolutely nothing to cry about. But cry I did.

I kept on walking and as I cried and walked I found myself saying, “I’m so sorry…I’m so sorry…I’m so sorry Nathan..I’m so sorry.” Over and over and over again. Gosh I’m crying again just by typing this.

And as the emotions left me I realized I had been holding on to this grief for a long long time. It felt like old, stale grief, grief that just needed to be released, grief that needed to come out to create space in my heart for even more happiness.

It was grief for all of the fear I experienced the first year of Nathan’s life. Grief for all of the times I was angry at him for not doing things better. Grief for all of the times I wanted to change him, and couldn’t. Grief for not seeing the amazing unique gem in front of me sooner. Grief for all those wasted moments when I could’ve been enjoying my perfect son, but instead I longed for something different.

And through tears and release I found myself saying, “I didn’t know any better, I just didn’t know better, I wish I’d known better.” But I didn’t. So I made a conscious choice. I decided to forgive myself for all that wasted time.

So as I continued walking I said out loud, over and over and over again, “I forgive myself, I forgive myself.”

And then Lucas ran into a fence (he’s the most awkward uncoordinated dog in the planet) and landed on mud so the moment was lost and the tears of release became tears of laughter.

And I’m sharing this because it was honestly the strangest thing to me. I had no conscious idea that I was holding on to that grief. It took me completely by surprise. But I did feel lighter after having cried and gone through that moment. I felt one step closer to deeper, immovable peace.

Do you feel that you are holding on to subconscious grief?

His 4 year old cousin Avery 🙂