“Hello beautiful people of the internet!” What a phrase, that will haunt me in years to come. This week blew my mind and if I were smart, I would have advertised differently, but here I am, writing this so when I am old, I can have a chuckle.
My little support group, the Beauty in Disability, hosted a small event yesterday about what a disability is, because education is important. We started to advertise early had our names in my small town’s weekly newspaper last week but received limited response. My best friend is highly involved in my work, is also a cerebral palsy advocate, we talk every day and even though he is about 5 years older than me- he understands me better then most people I know. His girlfriend is awesome too, we both harass him, and they are great people, who I hope to meet in person someday. On Wednesday he sat me down, over facetime and basically said “We need to keep posting reminders maybe someone will show up!”
He then dared me to make a TikTok video promoting it. Hahaha, ok. 16 people will see it, maybe we will meet someone new! So, I did not get ready- no make-up, combed my hair with my fingers, (I even had icing on my shirt), and I just did it with zero practice, well one outtake because my friend made me start laughing. I was not planning on showing anyone, no closed captioning, nothing fancy.
Fast forward 8 hours it is a little after midnight, and my other friend who works with the Beauty in Disability also texted me:
Hey, have you seen your TikTok recently?
No why?
Well, it had over 745 views! Little did I know that it was only the tip of the iceberg! It kept growing and growing and growing! It now has over 113,000 views! I also posted a closed captioning version the following day that has over 30,000 views! Mind boggling!
My goal for 2021 was that 10,000 people would see some type of my work this year, I could have never imagined that that number would be over eleven times that amount in 2 days! I might have lost a few braincells and before you ask I am all caught up in my schooling!
The workshop went incredibly well! I met a lot of extremely hard workers in the past week, and heard a lot of stories because of this. I feel like a lazy bum after hearing some of these stories! We had two workshops for the support group- 10 am and 6:30 pm. We bounced ideas around about education, media, and overall had a fantastic day answering people’s questions and meeting other people with disabilities. I really appreciated everyone who showed up and shared a story.
Side story: I also think God likes this idea because we went to 5 pm mass and it usually is never shorter then 55 minutes, we were in the car by 5:43 which NEVER happens!!
Yes, I rambled, yes this will make older me cringe, but I think it will be important to have this week documented as it was an important one for the Beauty in Disability to grow.
If you want to join a Beauty in Disability meeting please email beautyindisability@gmail.com Our next meeting will be February 28, 2021 at 3:00 PM EST. My TikTok is @lacey.richcreek, and I will share the video to the Just a Girl with Crutches Facebook page
My friend’s blog- https://disabilitysociology.blogspot.com/
Just a Girl With Crutches 
You never cease to amaze me. Keep up the good work.
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Thank you
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This was absolutely beautiful Lace!!!
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Thank you
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Well done, again, Lacey!
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