s0ulsurfing

Every day, I live my life with diabetes the same way. I test my blood sugar, I treat lows and I change infusion sets. It is a part of me. Sometimes, it is all of me. I get frustrated on a regular basis with the highs and lows or the way it interrupts my entire life from school to dating to sleep.

It amazes me though when I look back on all those days. It makes me smile. As frustrated as I get and all the tears I cry, I don't remember diabetes as my past. Surely, it's there. I just don't remember the daily parts of the disease.

I think of my first date and the first time I felt the panic of "what if he thinks I'm weird?" (because of my clothes or my car or my diabetes). I remember going for ice cream, but I don't remember doing any insulin (of course, I did it but where'd that moment go?). I think of my high school graduation party. I can remember what I wore, the crazy conversations and the flying Benihana's knives. I don't remember checking my blood sugar or bolusing for my teriyaki. I think of college football games. I remember shouting, tailgating and running through the rain. I don't remember the lows I'm sure I had, the insulin or the constant blood sugar checks in the hot Texas sun.

There are things about my diabetes that I do remember: the hours after seizures, collapsing in the grocery store, nights of unexplained lows. I remember going to doctors appointments, telling my first love about it all and hassling with my school to let me carry my insulin on campus.

The bottom line of all this: no matter how frustrated I get with the daily diabetes life, in the end it's forgotten. Of course, I'll remember the big things like seizures, my first days on the pump and the day I'm cured. Yet through it all, I'll keep reminding myself that I'm not going to remember the daily hassles. So why stress now?