Time.

Whew! I haven't had a chance to write nearly as much as I'd like over break. I've had the joy of being able to spend valuable time painting, watching movies, sleeping in, having lazy days, catching up with old friends, enjoying time with family and loved ones, going to parties, and reading. I'm in love with break and haven't been bored for a moment.
In fact, if there's anything about life I have learned outside of PT this semester, it's something I was reminded of while chatting with an old friend:

Time is our most valuable asset.

And it is. No matter what I own, nothing beats the freedom of having time to my own. The ability to hike in the mountains or escape for a day, or take a walk in the park, or get drinks with friends. The ability to spend 8 hours straight painting away, or reading a book of my choice. Walking through town just to explore new places. My freedom and my time are so valuable to  me, and so I can't imagine ever being bored, when I have the luxury of time on my hands (which never comes often enough). Maybe that's the reason why I love it so much and can never get enough of it - maybe it's just my nature. It doesn't matter whether it's a day, or a week, or a month of Winter break, or a whole summer - there never seems to be enough time. I live it to the fullest and revel in the breath of each free day as though it is the last one in existence. Every day, chance for a new adventure or new experience or new person to meet, new knowledge to learn. I love having that love for life, that need to feel as though each day is an opportunity to work closer to a goal or better myself in some small way, even if it's just taking a "mental health day" to help myself be more productive tomorrow.

When I was diagnosed with Diabetes, I felt very upset originally because I felt as though this illness was an encroachment upon my personal freedom. And in many ways, more than one, it is - it is so much more than a name, a label, a number on a glucometer screen. Diabetes does a lot of things to you, and I'll say it over and over again - at least half of those things are mental. I wouldn't care half so much about those numbers on the screen or how thirsty and irritable a high made me feel if I didn't also have the worry of potential complications someday - the guilt of "I could have done better" - the conscious worry of conserving my test strips and insulin. Diabetes takes away your ability to be carefree, it's true. I'll never be truly carefree. I have to think twice about traveling and how I will provide medicine for myself and how I take care of my body and how often. So it took a long time to stop feeling as though Diabetes was stealing time and freedom from me, especially in moments when my body is crying "take care of me!", be it a low or I forgot to grab a new insulin pen so I have to leave wherever I'm at to go get a new one from home - and it has to come at the forefront of everything.

You have to shift your mindset - for me, taking care of myself is a price I pay to have my time and freedom, now. Now, as an adult, you realize there are certain needs you have to take care of, be it bodily or bills or making sure you have enough emergency savings in the bank or setting time aside for studying - these eat away at your "freedom", but in order to buy yourself the freedom to use your time as you wish, these are the things you must do.

And you'll find you start valuing your time all the more, then. It is precious. You paid for it. And you can't retrieve it once it's gone. So you must make the most of it - you owe that to no one but yourself. You answer to you at the end of the day -

"Did I spend my time to the best of my ability?" And if not - what can you change?

It makes you a busybody, but it's a happy way to live, and I find that regardless of feeling sad sometimes, my love for staying busy and industrious can always pull me through in the long run. This reminds me to count my blessings, and be grateful for each day as best I can. It's the best kind of therapy I could ask for.

How Frail, the Human Heart Must Be!

I thought that I could not be hurt;
I thought that I must surely be
impervious to suffering-
immune to pain
or agony.

My world was warm with April sun
my thoughts were spangled green and gold;
my soul filled up with joy, yet
felt the sharp, sweet pain that only joy
can hold.

My spirit soared above the gulls
that, swooping breathlessly so high
o'erhead, now seem to to brush their whir-
ring wings against the blue roof of
the sky.

(How frail the human heart must be-
a throbbing pulse, a trembling thing-
a fragile, shining instrument
of crystal, which can either weep,
or sing.)

Then, suddenly my world turned gray,
and darkness wiped aside my joy.
A dull and aching void was left
where careless hands had reached out to
destroy

my silver web of happiness.
The hands then stopped in wonderment,
for, loving me, they wept to see
the tattered ruins of my firma-
ment

(How frail the human heart must be-
a mirrored pool of thought. So deep
and tremulous an instrument
of glass that it can either sing,
or weep).

Syvlia Plath, I Thought That I Could Not Be Hurt

12/9/2014

I am sad again. I am sad, I am morose, and it is hard for me to be alone with my somber, melancholy thoughts. Life is hard and complicated, and it simply overwhelms me sometimes with the sheer weight of it all - the sheer weight of what is put on the small shoulders of small people like you and I.

And I am happy, but the sadness is there, bleeding into the frayed, grey edges of my tired heart. It takes the colour of life and makes it that less vibrant.

I am tired, I am tired, and still my heart beats on, still it does, and still it will, no matter what life throws at me and what happens.

I want to be happy, but there is so many things right now that prevent that, that weigh on my and burden me, trouble my thoughts and make it hard to sleep at night. I am a ghost in my own head - an occupant, haunted by the troubled thoughts that rule it and are there.

Maybe I should take more walks. I know I should pray more. God is there, and he is waiting for me. Sometimes I just get frustrated, I don't feel like he has any answers for me, and there is no one to tell me what to do. So I push everything away, and live in the echoing, vast space that is my head - my own worst enemy, sometimes.

Sadness and I are not strangers. No one is a stranger to sadness, I think, nor can they be. We all have different ways of dealing with it. I relish in my freedom - in productivity - in staying busy, and doing all I can with my mind and hands and body. I value the ability to do those things highly. I wished that it worked all of the time, but sometimes I simply feel dull and drowned. Can I beat this? Oh, I'm sure, I can. I will be fine again in a few days. I have learned myself well enough over the years to know that sometimes we just have sad days. And you need a day or two - or three or four - to mope and wet your eyes a little and then wake up one morning and find that things are OK again. Not perfect, but okay. Okay. You cling to that word inside your head, and pull yourself upright again. The world is happy again. This is the wax and wane of life, the give and take, the way you cope with the broken and beautiful little and big things.
(Or you're just mad, and go ricocheting in between - )
This is how I cope, anyways. Sometimes I hate sharing things like this because I feel very vulnerable - but writing is also a sense of catharsis for me, and I need it to vent and open up, and get things off my chest. Sometimes, vulnerability is a good thing. Who knows. Maybe you find you identify?

When Diabetes Calls.

Last night I checked my blood sugar before going to bed, and it was 90.
Normally, this is a little low, and in the past I would have eaten something so as to not sleep below 130. However, it was midnight, I had a final in the morning, and I was tired. I didn't care, quite frankly.
Diabetes is a pain sometimes, and you just don't want to deal. So I went to sleep.

Going to sleep itself was difficult, but when I did, I woke up in a drenching sweat at 2 a.m. and immediately knew what it meant.

low.low.low.dangerous. My body hummed. Sweat dripped down my face and made the bedsheets damp and my hair was wet. It beaded at the curve of my back. Holy mother of God, this was a bad one. The depth of how incapacitating it was floored me. I stumbled to the bathroom and turned on the light, knowing I needed to - go downstairs to get something, right?
In my delirium, I couldn't remember that I always kept a granola bar in my nightstand.

The good tasting ones are downstairs.... my sleepy, low self mumbled. If I'm going to be low and I"m hungry, I might as well eat something good.

Instead I stumbled back to the bed, laid on my back and closed by eyes, bathroom light still on. In a second... I mumbled. Will...go down... in a second. When I feel better.
I was so sweaty, so incapacitated, so unutterably weak I felt I might fall down the stairs and not make it at all if I tried to go down now. I'd feel better in a few minutes, right?
In and out of sleep I fell for about 10 minutes, until I came back to consciousness again. I didn't feel any better, I was still shaking, and my mind shifted back into the right state that it was supposed to be in.

Ugh, God, what am I doing? I sat up slowly. I can't wait to treat, I'm just going to get more low. And there's a granola bar in my purse. Why would I think I need to go downstairs?
Just feeling myself, I estimated that I was so low - almost the lowest I've ever been - that I was probably in the high 20's/low 30 mgdL's. I felt positively awful. My purse was lying on the floor against my bag, and I rolled over and grabbed it, fishing around until my fingers grasped the granola bar. I unwrapped it, stumbled back to my pillow and ate it laying down. I just laid there then, still feeling completely like shit - low, sweaty, shaky, not in control.
After about 10 or 15 minutes I still felt terrible. I tested. 40 mg/dL.
I sighed and slinked down the stairs, grasping the rail for balance as I made my way into the kitchen. The light above the oven was on, so in the dark, I slid down to the floor, onto the cool wood. I started looking for Peanut Butter and remembered we didn't have any, so I made some homemade popcorn, stumbling around the counter above me for the popcorn oil and kernels, then putting them into a pot and waiting until they were popped - I poured them into a Tupperware and crawled back upstairs, eating the popcorn until I felt ok again. Sleep was shot for the night - final in the morning, whatever, looks like I'd be sleep deprived all week. So much for that.

When Diabetes calls, even in your sleep, it doesn't matter. You answer.