writing when I can.

There is an irony I find in writing a blog about diabetes. I realize that I spend so much time dealing with diabetes in my day, every flipping day, that sometimes I don't have the energy to choose to do one more thing around the subject of diabetes. I realize that there is a deep, fundamental push and pull in my life with this disease. Me testing how far I can get away from the reality of it's presence in my life. Tethered forever, but always trying, tip-toeing as far away as I can get before it tugs me back. I've even been trying to visualize that idea, though it's not finished or really even formulated yet. What does this feeling look like if it were a picture? That question and the act of making the idea "real" through art, helps me to see and better understand what I am doing. Which helps me to understand the lean of my life. Which is always away. From the blood tests and low or high bloodsugars and set changes and unending planning and the diabetes subtitle dialogue running just below my life.

So sometimes, I can't get up to write about diabetes too. I can write about art and design and my dogs every day at dear ada. Every single day for the last 2 years, barring breaks for surgery and travel. That process is purely celebratory and joyful. And though this blog is that too, it is also always in relation to a deep and sometimes buried, heart felt sadness and lean away from diabetes in my life. The joy comes from the connections and shared experiences. The celebrations are the milestones and victories. There is humor and even a new, coping philosophy to be found in the process of writing about diabetes. And then of course, there is the unending comfort the blog provides in knowing that I am not alone in life with this disease. Others know of "what I speak", and amazingly they reliably know what to say when it's most needed. My husband says that people who don't have diabetes can sympathize but never truly empathize because they don't share the same references and experiences. But the OC does. They empathize and comfort and always get it. I was struck by a comment from Scott the other day, where he was acknowledging the struggles of our disease. Not my disease, but our disease. That one word made all the difference in reminding me yet again, that I was not alone.

So I guess this post is simply a clarification as to why I don't write more than I do. It's all that I can muster. It's so good and satisfying to do it when I feel like it, but it's also one of the few places I can say no to diabetes. Yes today, no tomorrow and the next. That's good you know. To have a place where you can actually say that and have it stick. I guess that's another good thing about having this blog which is ironic really. It's good to write a blog I get to not write at times.

Comments

[RichW]

Sometimes you feel like a nut and sometimes you don't.

[Amylia]

Thank you, Birdie, for acknowledging your feelings about blogging about diabetes and the lean--sometimes a gentle lean and sometimes a blatant push away from the reality of its presence. I, too, blog, and have started ading posts about my diabetes. Before, it was a blog about teaching in TW, my travels and experiences as a teacher and an ex-pat abroad, but I found that my diabetes was there, and a big part of my experience. It felt good to talk about it, write about it, admit it and honor that part of myself that I wish wasn't there, but is. Anyway, sorry to turn this into a comment about myself. Bleh...I just wanted to say I like reading your blog, and it has enhanced my life, knowing there is a great artist and writer out there, dealing with some of the same stuff I am, and who is able to blog about it, too, when she wants to. I like that notion. Thank you!

[Scott K. Johnson]

Wow - thanks Ada.

I too write when I can, and more importantly, when I feel like it.

Sometimes when I write I feel it helps me better understand, or maybe just cope, with the deep emotional aspects of this thing that I am not able to wrap my head around. It's a coping mechanism of sorts.

[Kevin]

Excellent perspective.
I've been saying "no" to my blog for a long time now.

And, by the way, that picture is awesome. I really like it.