Summer Days

The slow, warm days of summer are here. I'm happy to report that my life as I know it has been... totally wonderful lately. This week started out on an amazing note. I got two job offers from both of the jobs I applied for, my car runs (I had a bad fuel pump that kept leaving me stranded without a car that started last month), and I booked 4 gigs yesterday. Mornings have taken on a wonderful sort of peacefulness. I wake up when I want, my husband has left me coffee on my nightstand to the left, and I make avocado toast with an egg and eat in peacefulness while he is on his daily run. I do yoga, which I have come to love. I tidy up, maybe prep dinner and stick it in the crockpot, and then I find a place to study for the NPTE for the day.

After 8 years of college,  I must say that I find the peace invigorating and downright good for my soul. It has been a weird transition, in fact, getting used to this life of mine, in this brief period of wonderful rest and recovery before I start working. After hearing the news about the jobs yesterday, I spent a long time thinking about how my life was going to change. How I was going to get health care and the daily accounting for dollars and pennies and crunching jobs every weekend was going to come to a graceful halt. Sure, I have loans and credit cards to pay off - I may not be able to afford all my wants right away - but I felt such a peace in knowing that all of my needs and my husband's needs are going to be provided for in just a few weeks. With smart financial planning, in a few years I can be debt free and then some. As I walked through the grocery store aisles yesterday, I marveled at where I've been and how far I've come. The years of going to school, doing homework, studying until the late hours, driving to work all weekend, worrying about affording insulin, having no healthcare or insulin costing too much, making do with all of my old belongings, my computer on its last legs and those shoes that are slightly too worn out, putting off wants and paying bills and doing what needed to be done. It's been hard. I've held multiple jobs. I've learned how to be a wife. I have relished my journey and how it makes me grow. This is my unique story and this is who I am. I may not always be the top of the class or the best out of everyone, but I will try until I can't try anymore, I will run towards a goal until my feet give out, I will give it my all until I have nothing left to give and then I'll keep on giving. That is who I am and who I have become, after years of fighting to make my life stable, support myself with finances, save, be responsible, make a home and a life for myself that I can be proud of. That I can look on at the end of the day and smile and say, "I made that."

I made it. Years and years of hard work, and I've made it. The road was hard, I cried, I wanted to give up, I cursed, I become frustrated at this hand of life and that. But I made it. And I'm so overwhelmed by joy at the knowledge of this fact that I have made it. Life is a wonderful and worthwhile thing, and I am pleased to know that I have spent my 23 years thus far working hard, setting goals and reaching for more. I am humbled at how much the people I love have helped support me and uplift me. My heart is full. Life is such a marvelous adventure, and I am overwhelmed with thankfulness for the ability to be able-bodied and minded and able to put my mind towards anything I please.

I remember that girl I reference frequently in this blog - that girl sitting in that sunny doctor's office, all those years ago, wondering what Diabetes meant and if it would stop me from doing what I wanted. I remember the affirmation from my doctor that I could do it, that it would make the road harder but she had done it and so could I. I remember the affirmation from others with my disease that I could do it, that we could do it, that this disease was no small thing but that we were bigger than it would ever be. This year - this time in my life - this is the time of my life where I have finally gotten the chance to show that girl that everything those people ever told her was true. That she could do it, that she could overcome those obstacles and push for what she wanted. My blood sugars still aren't perfect but they are getting better. One of my insulin's is only 9 dollars a month and the other one I have enough samples of from the doctor to last me until I start working. I'll have insurance and a doctor and I'm even thinking of getting an insulin pump this year, a tubeless one.
That peace in my heart I feel - that fullness and hope and excitement for new things - I feel happy because I've earned that. And I hope that peace I feel is something I carry from now until always.