This was going to be the year that I just took a pass on the fundraising; closed down Charlie’s Angels until next year. I just felt burnt out. We’ve done lots of fundraising for JDRF since Charlie’s diagnosis. It’s hard to get up for it every year; especially knowing that with it comes much rejection and wasted energy. It’s also tough to keep telling friends and family that a cure is right around the corner. Is it?

For me, though, I need to just start doing it. It’s like exercise or diet. You just need to pick a day to start and just do it. Once I start, fundraising becomes like an addiction for me. I stare at my inbox with the same fervor that a child does when watching TV to see if his school district is closed due to snow. I tend to shoot for the moon because I’m a bit of a dreamer, knowing that most of my attempts won't pan out. I’ll take fifteen ignored emails and a handful of "no thanks" if I’m able to land one whopper. You never know how your fundraising letter might touch someone; someone with the resources to give quite generously.

So, anyway, I really was going to do nothing at all this year. Not sure what it was exactly that gave me the jump-start and pulled me from my fundraising funk. Maybe it was thinking about Charlie’s determination to beat out 18 of the 20 kids at hockey camp in an off-ice pushup competition while his insulin pump hung precariously from his waistband and tapped the floor with each muscle-quivering decline. I swear the kid who won was a cyborg. He could have supported his 40-pound frame for hours.

Charlie gave it everything he had. He is hardwired to succeed.

Well, there may not be enough time to organize the Baby Olympics fundraiser I’ve been dreaming up for years and the world will have to go on wondering whose baby is the mightiest. And my Food Fight for a Cure? (Because Food is a Battle). Maybe next year.

Happy to report though, that Charlie’s Angels is back in business.