Who Am I And Why Am I Here?

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“Oh, how interesting! I wonder how I can solve this and where it will lead me. I’m intrigued and excited to see how I grow in the process.”

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My name is Donna Melena. I am Deaf and use American Sign Language (ASL). The chances if you met me in person, you wouldn’t think of me as a disabled person. As soon as I started paying attention to you and you began to speak to me. My impulsive response but comes to me naturally in mind, and I began to move my hands up and gestured “DEAF.”

I would usually have to gesture “DEAF” repeatedly to make it a point that I cannot understand you. I don’t speak either. By the time you began to figure out that I am not hearing and don’t talk. Many thoughts rushed through your mind, but you began to realize the invisible disability is natural. Not every disability is visible.

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How I react is usually based on the people’s reactions. Some are willing to work with me. Some aren’t. It is crucial to understand that I do not speak for every disabled people, but I am more than happy to share my story as a Deaf person. I’ve been Deaf since birth. I’ve been here on earth for 26 years, about to be 27.

It always surprised me every time I discovered that many people hadn’t met deaf people before or haven’t been interacted with unique people when I knew I am not the only one in the world. At times, it can get easy to feel completely isolated in the extensive world. I sometimes forget that I am different than most, but I am still a human. 

That’s why I’m here to tell my story. In this busy world, we often forget our privileges. Easy to overlook something that isn’t important to you but is critical to others. 

One of my earliest memories from my childhood was watching my Grandma Ginny handcrafted the cards. In a long span of years, my Grandma Ginny would keep doing the same thing, the handcrafted cards sent to every family member every year. While I always admired my grandma’s craft skills but I don’t always appreciate it. 

Besides working and just surviving, I want to expand my creativity. I often found myself lurking around the bloggers’ blog sites. I would admire their excellent contents. Some have caught my attention and convinced me to purchase their work. Some visited once and forgotten. But something about the blog platform that is still lingering around in my mind for some time.

I remember the first time I went straight and bought the site name, got started with blogging. Little did I know, I know nothing about blogging, but the most matter is that I realized that I was having a problem with being consistent, my whys, and had a hard time staying focused somehow. I would admire the bloggers’ blog sites without actually understanding visiting the area was the tiny part of the picture. I didn’t realize how long it would take them to operate the blogging. I didn’t have the right mentors. I didn’t see the years/months of creating the contents, the long hours, and the tremendous pressures that lie behind every blog post if you’re on the professional blogging level.

I began to spend more time on blogging, written content, pictures, and whatever it takes to monetize my blog within time. Here’s a thing, I never felt confident with launching the blog, so I wasn’t rushed to opening up to the Internet. When I finally start playing around with Social Media via Instagram. I had my IG account in private, but I decided to give it a shot and was surprised to see the followers grew in a short time.

I was getting attention and comments from others that warmed my heart, which was unexpected because I have been in a dark position for a long time. I’ve been battling with depression and anxiety for such a period, and sadly, last year, my mental health has reached the lowest point where I ended up staying at the psychiatric hospital twice.

Last year was filled with many struggles and changes, but I began to open up to my family, friends, and people. My personal achievement is opening up to my grandparents. I learned to speak out my truth and my story. I feel free from all things holding me back, but no one knew that I’ve been working on a project for a long time. A few weeks ago, I was struggling with my reasons for launching my lifestyle blog. My grandma Ginny still managed to surprise me with a homemade card sent in the mail.

Inside of the envelope, there was a thick homemade album with a letter from my grandparents passing on a message: “This is an album to put photos in &/or write in. Write thoughts, poems, dates of phots, and places they were taken at. Plus who is in the photo. Hope you will enjoy it.” with butterfly kisses. 

That’s when I knew the potential of creating my Lifestyle Blog. 

I felt free.

And that’s how The Life of Donna is born. I want to thank my grandparents for everything they could have done. With their unconditional love, I will stand up. Again. and again. and again over. until it is my time to go. I think almost everybody can agree life is hard at times, and I would love to know that my blog can help you in any way with life situations. I also want you to know that Healing and Growth are possible.

Here is what I would love to write about in the future. 

• Life
• Money + Finance
• Travel
• Cook
• Personal Development
• Deaf World
• Beauty
• Style
• Donna’s Diary

My goal is to make this learning process more fun and keep me on the top of my toes. I am writing this to hope to see the blog post results each month, expanding my skills and experimenting. I would love to see more pictures, plan the writing skills, be more disciplined with goal setting, and document my day-to-day life and as a creative outlet to express my love in life.

I hope to see where this journey takes me.

Love Donna