Embracing Minimalism.

My bedroom, which doubles as my workspace, is one of the more poorly lit rooms in the house.

A few years ago, I painted the white, dishevelled walls with a refreshing coat of sky blue. The great creaky brown wardrobe was replaced in favour of a more built in style with great white sliding mirror doors. Last year I purchased an attractive white floor lamp which now overlooks my desk and does a super job at flooding the room with some much needed warm light.

Despite all of these changes, it still hasn’t felt like a place where I might feel focussed. If I have any hope of achieving my resolution of ‘less is more’ this year, than I damn well need my focus. As I was searching the interwebs for ideas to make a room look brighter, I came across a suggestion of embracing a more minimalist style.

As I began to clear the many surfaces, shelves and walls in my room, I realised just how many visible signs of diabetes there are scattered everywhere.

The dry blood stains left on my desktop, from every used test strip that I’ve lazily discarded there.

The empty vials of glucose tabs scattered across my bedhead at the most inconvenient of times, that I’ve been simply too lazy to throw away.

The open packets of infusion sets that I leave on my chest of drawers after a site change, just in case I’ve chosen a bad site and require the needle to re-apply it.

The silver box of Nurofen Zavance capsules, that I take on the occasionally bad days where diabetes makes dealing with the normal person stuff a lot harder.

The pencil case full of my diabetes travel gear, that I lazily fling atop my chest of drawers the moment I walk in the door.

The meter, test strips and lancing device that sit within easy reach of my bedside at night, but are nothing more than a hindrance to my work vibes during the day.

The notepad on my desktop, filled with some of the most undecipherable diabetes scribble.

The handful of meter batteries on the corner of my bedhead, that I haven’t yet found the time to sort into piles of ones that work and ones that don’t.

The USB wall chargers and bright yellow cables used to charge up diabetes devices, that are then left creeping across the floor for several days to come.

The sight of my hoard of diabetes supplies in my wardrobe, because I’m often too lazy to slide the door back across.

As I look around staring at more wall space, surface space and shelf space, my room suddenly feels so much brighter.

I realise just how suffocating all of those small but visible signs of diabetes made me feel, and I’m vowing to make more of an effort to keep them behind closed doors.

2 Comments

  1. Rick Phillips

    If your Diacrap closet was as big as mine, you would be out on the street When the youngest went to college I moved my Diabcrap into his room. Next stop a new foundation out front. Do you think 75 Square meters will be big enough?

  2. Becky

    My son is still young (11), so we keep his gear in a the “computer room.” A big white shelf with most everything on it, though we’ve had to make some changes this summer as we found it was getting too hot. In his room, he only has his lunchbox-sized diabetes bag that he carries everywhere, and his phone to connect with CGM. I reckon moving away from home comes with lots of challenges, not least of all is where to put all this stuff!

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