Hello again. It’s me. The person who often writes about depressing stuff! First, let’s look at what I’m wearing in the epic photo I’ve included. Those are some LONG jean shorts. The reason they are long? Because my parents refused to buy us new stuff (see: white shorts from the GAP) and so more than likely, these are my sister’s old jeans that I have incorrectly cut and rolled to try and look hip. Need more proof, look at the thickness of the rolled cuff. There are at least fourteen rolls of jean in that.

Next, the bangs. They are long, they are unkempt and they have not recently been brushed. The shirt is great and TBH I would probably wear it today. Why I am holding a strangely enormous stack of brochures? Nobody knows.

This picture was taken about a year before I was diagnosed with type one diabetes. I had always been a skinny kid, but in the year that followed this picture, I would come close to wasting away. Because my body was eating itself. No really, that’s how it works.

I feel like I harp on this a lot and for that I apologize. But again, this is a place that I come for a catharsis of sorts and today I am feeling really sorry for myself and so I need an outlet. Life already feels so hard. Between work, kids, animals, exercise, cooking, cleaning and trying to sustain a marriage, sometimes I can’t believe that I have a disease as well. It’s such a piece of shit too. Yesterday, when things were already rough, this motherfucker decides to completely go ape shit and results in a 12 hour blood sugar reading over 400. So you know, that feels like the flu. You want to puke. You want to sleep. Your head pounds. You have to pee every five minutes. You want to guzzle water. Your eyes are blurry because the blood vessels inside of them are filled to the brim with unprocessed sugar. And yet you are expected to keep going about your day. As if you are just like everyone else. They eat lunch at lunchtime, you sit next to them unable to eat because of your elevated sugar. A few hours later when your insulin finally decides to work, you grab desperately for the nearest source of sugar, sweating profusely while you drink a coke, eat a granola bar, shove candy down your throat. Again, you are expected to keep going about your day. Blend in. Or try to.

Sometimes I want a medal. I want a standing fucking ovation. I want the universe to say “great job” or “we understand” or “here’s a prize for staying alive this long”. I want pity. I want a round of applause. I want to be seen.

Other days I want to hide under my bed. Put my hands over my ears and my eyes and decide I won’t show up. That being me with what I carry around, out in the universe is just too fucking much.

And the strangest part of all of it, is as much as I hate this part of who I am, it is so intrinsically part…of…who..I…am, that I can’t imagine life without its presence. It’s an invisible  backpack I carry every second of every minute of every day. A thick cloak or a heavy box I can’t take off or put down. In many ways, I am who I am because of it. I don’t know who I would be without it.

So as I look at that picture, the one with the enormous jeans, the thick and likely unwashed bangs and the very bizarre stack of brochures, I can’t help but think about what’s silently going on inside that body. Underneath the really cute shirt. The pancreas that is beginning to slow down, the organs that are beginning to suffer. The brokenness that’s beginning to occur. My mind goes to my daughter’s body. She’s seven.

I think about her beautiful belly and heart and toenails and I pray to god she never wears the cloak I wear.