Mid Year Blues
I sit down in the evening, and I marvel at how quickly yet another day has gone by. I glance at the calendar, and I cannot believe that it will be August in a few days. I watch the mornings slowly beginning to get lighter, and I want to make the most of this beautiful time of the year before its gone once again. Another Friday rolls around, and I cannot believe how quickly the weeks are flying by.
In the grand scheme of things, there are a million things that I want to do.
I want to sit down and write, every day. I want to put more effort into my meals, rather than the usual toasted sandwich I have for lunch every day. I want to save the money I spend on the odd treat at lunchtime. I want to work on my fitness. I want to improve my hba1c. I want to finish all the odd jobs at the house this weekend. I want to read. I want to get hooked on a new TV show, instead of falling asleep out of lack of interest. I want to make time for myself. I still dream of one day having a career that I’m really passionate about. I want to feel full of energy. I want to be excited. I want to be enthusiastic. I want to go to bed feeling fulfilled at the end of the day.
In this grand scheme of this thing that we call life, there are simply not enough hours in the day to get all of these things done.
Last week at the Telethon Type 1 Diabetes Centre in Perth, Canadian T1D athlete Sebastien Sasseville spoke about having a bank of good and bad blood sugar levels. He reminded us that there’s no point focussing on those bad readings that were deposited in the past. Like anything in the past, there’s nothing I can do to change it. I can only look forward, and at what I can do today to deposit more readings into the good blood sugar bank.
I’ve definitely been reflecting on my own diabetes management quite a lot at the moment, particularly now that things are starting to settle somewhat with my insulin pump. I think a lot about where I’m hoping to be with my diabetes in the long run, and what I hope to achieve.
One of my favourite quotes reads “no expectations, no disappointment.” I’m often reminded of the diabetes goal I set for myself at the beginning of the year. That goal of striving for stable overnight glucose levels was full of expectations, and led to a lot of disappointment.
While I’m unlikely to start training for a climb up Mount Everest or a triathlon across Canada anytime soon, I did take away a small piece of inspiration from Seb’s talk. Going into the second half of this year, I’m definitely going to try to focus more on my diabetes for today, and for the now.
Because in the grand scheme of things, the now is what is going to get me to where I want to be in the long run.
