For years people have said that even though I have diabetes I can live a "normal life". I've struggled with this idea for a long, long time but thanks to a bit of an epiphany a few years back I no longer feel that normal, in the most normal sense of the word, is really my goal. Though I know most people mean well when they say this kind of thing, for the longest time I reached for the state of normalcy that they were referring to and that I'd had before diabetes. I reached for it and failed dismally in the process, because of course it wasn't possible. And even though people do mean well when they talk about the "normal life" I lead as a diabetic, in the process of saying it, they are oblivious to (and unintentionally negating) all the hard work it takes to appear so "normal". Normal went out the window with 6 shots a day for 16 years followed by 6 years of life on the insulin pump, countless blood tests and the analysis of pretty much every ounce of food I've eaten and every moment of exercise I've done in the last 22 years. What's normal for me now is anything but normal in the way other people talk about it.
No, normal defined that way is not what I work so hard for anymore. Healthy is my goal now. Healthy with diabetes. Healthy in spite of diabetes. Healthy even because of diabetes. I want to be healthy and happy and comfortable with my life as it is now. My goal is to have wholeness and vibrancy and well being become my normal, and to not worry anymore about being "normal" like everyone else.
you have the right mind set...its not easy
Posted by: Erica | April 25, 2008 at 06:58 AM