I'm a proud member of the flickr group Diabetes 365. The idea of this group is that you take a picture every day that represents how diabetes affects your life.

I was a little intimidated at first because, despite my love of photography, I wasn't sure that I could commit to taking a picture every day. Members of the group knew it may be difficult, and came up with a focus for each week to help people along. I took the plunge and for the first 34 days had no trouble coming up with a picture for each day. I challenged myself to showcase something different than others were showing for that day. I even came up with a list of pictures I could take should I come up short one day.

But then I found myself playing catch up--realizing after a day or two that I hadn't taken a picture and trying to think of something that would illustrate my life for those two days. Or, I found myself scrambling to take a picture right before I went to bed so I could fulfill my daily 365 obligations.

I wound up taking a break. I thought of the project every day, but somehow couldn't motivate myself to take a picture. I didn't want to be trite and mimic pictures others had taken. I wasn't striving for uniqueness, but my theory was that if the purpose of the group is to educate others then what good really does it serve to have 10 pictures of feet?

The truth is that some days diabetes just isn't that invasive. Some days it's just something that's attached to my hip and delivers medicine; I hardly know it's there. Some days it yells at me and makes me pay attention and completely controls me.

Forcing myself to take a picture of something just for the sake of taking a picture wasn't fun anymore. And it forced me to make diabetes a bigger deal than it actually was. At least for that day.