It is What it is

Is there such a thing as being too relatable?  How much does it backfire when someone tries just a little or really even a whole lot to tell us that they can totally relate to what we are going through?  Understanding & that “me too” feeling is amazing yet that thing beyond can be a big time turn off to say the least.  What am I getting at?  Have you experienced those times when you run into someone who vehemently tells you exactly what living with type 1 diabetes is like even though they do not live with it themselves & they do not live with someone who has it either.  In no way am I referring to the kind-hearted folks who attempt to learn & have more of an understanding of type 1 or another “365” challenge & try to be more compassionate as a result of what they have learned.  Let’s call a spade a spade.  What I am really getting at is those times when we run into a type of either know it all behaving person or someone who has learned a few things & insists that they get it & then go on to tell us exactly what our lives are like living with type 1 or another “365” challenge.  Personally I cannot put just one word on how that rubs me the wrong way.  Worse than that though is the situation beyond that where another person has ulterior motives to try to appear genuinely understanding.  That is not okay on any level.  The phrase, “I know exactly what you mean” coming from someone not living with a chronic disease is kind of bizarre.  My tolerance for people choosing to fake behaviours is profoundly low.   It is okay with me for someone to not be able to relate & admit it & say something like “that must really stink.”  Prior to 7 years ago I had no idea what living life with type 1 diabetes was like. When type 1 or another “365” health challenge would be described my position was to admit that I did not have a clue what these diseases were like yet my heart went out to the people living with these illnesses.  Even living with type 1 myself I would never dream of painting all people living with type 1 with the same brush.  We each live with type 1 with different experiences.  The only common denominator that I would say with zeal is that every single person living with type 1 diabetes that I have come across has had big time determination & the spirit of warriors.  Are there some pretty brutal days living with type 1?  You better believe that there are as far as I am concerned.  Am I growing stronger every single day as a direct result of living with type 1?  Absolutely yes.  It does not make type 1 less of a beast.  It is the choice to fight for our lives literally every day that brings indescribable strength.  And man the gratitude for a few hours off for good blood sugar behaviours is amazing.  What I am referring to are those times when my blood sugars land in the heavenly 5-8 zone & I feel physically & emotionally great big time.  The level of energy that I have when my blood sugars are in that zone is beyond great.  My thankfulness for those spurts of feeling really well is huge.  Prior to 7 years ago I realize that I took what I considered to be my then perfect health totally for granted.  Now my attitude is that I will be the healthiest type 1 that I can be & live life to the fullest sticking my tongue out at the type 1 beast as often as possible.

Type 1 has as I have mentioned before found that voice inside of me that previously had been one of don’t rock the boat & replaced that with rock the world with the truth instead.  It can be strange in life how a once profoundly shy girl can find herself as an adult being a strong voice of advocation in so many settings.  Just this morning I had a frustrating discussion with a small box thinker who was spouting off policy & ignoring the fact that the whole reason for the discussion was being completely dismissed.  If you are a parent you will get what I mean when I say that when the adults in a situation that significantly impacts the well being of a child take the easy way out it is not okay, not okay, not okay.  That once shy girl once upon a time would have accepted decisions of others in the spirit of not rocking the boat.  Thank goodness there are no traces left of that mentality within me!  Wrong is wrong & it did not make me popular this morning respectfully advocating for one of our children yet that is never the point.  When something significantly impacts our children in a negative way & the writing is boldly on the wall that this is the case, can we afford to sit quietly & not rock the boat.  We each answer this question for ourselves through our actions.  To make a long story short, I am not done with this advocation in this situation & I know I cannot even reason with someone to do the right thing but I will not give up.  Our children know that their Mom will stand in front of wrong every time whether I am tired, have low blood sugar or high blood sugars.  Incidentially, during this recent conversation with the individual taking the easy way out at the expense of children, I was in a low blood sugar  & I was still able to make a cohert case for right.  Take that type 1 in the rising above the low blood sugars too.  This type 1 Mom on a mission for a child is unstoppable I believe.  As an aside it sure cheeses some people off when you point out logically, respectfully, and intelligently that they are doing the wrong thing & give them the opportunity to do the right thing & they don’t take it.  Type 1 provided me with that warrior spirit & I will use every ounce of that for a good cause or as many as humanly possible in my lifetime.  For those who do not have a voice, we can choose to come forward to advocate in truth for them.  How cool is that!  There is that spirit of “we do not give up” within the type 1 community.  I love that big time!

This aside leads beautifully into the segauway that I was going to share with you next.  For a couple of decades or more, I have had a less than delicate saying that has served me well in practice.  The saying is that I can see nonsense like shit on glass.  Please forgive the indelicate wording but it is what it is.  It is a neat super power right?  It means that the majority of the time I can sense whether someone is giving me a line of bull or if words & actions are in alignment or more to the point whether someone is behaving in a faker way.  Recently, I had an individual tell me that they totally understood type 1, all about all the different insulin pumps & more & how lucky I am that I don’t have to worry about thinking about diabetes at all since I have an insulin pump.  Hmm, I thought to myself, this is not an episode of “The Magic schoolbus” so what the heck!  You know those moments where you have to tell yourself over & over again to pause & take that long, deep breath?  Yes, this was one of those times.  It was time to see if there was “brown stuff” on the glass so to speak.  Yes, there was my gut was telling me…screaming at me really.  In any case, I did decide to tell the person that does not have type 1 diabetes & does not live with anyone with diabetes that I am not proficient with all other insulin pumps but that I feel that I have an excellent understanding of the pump that has been attached to me for just over 5 years.  Then I asked the person how they arrived at the opinion that if we have an insulin pump that we can shut off our brains & that the insulin pump will magically make our blood sugars perfect.  The answer I got was a bunch of gobblygook.  So yes, the glass was dirty big time.  The thing is though that some people even when they logically realize that they are not making sense would rather stick with their stance than admit that they do not know something.  Yikes!  In that case, I decided to change the topic far away from the topic of anything diabetes related because there is no way I am choosing to die on the dirty glass so to speak going around & around in circles with someone making an irrational argument because they are too delicate to admit to being wrong.  Advocating is one thing but wasting my breath is another thing so I do not choose to die on every hill.  That leaves me with full energy to advocate & fight for what truly matters I have found.

To share a humourous experience that I had in second year university, you will see the dirty glass analogy in full play again.  There are some teachers & professors that leave incredible impressions upon us in life right?  I have had the honour to cross paths with many teachers & professors who have a profound calling to teach.  They are the outliers…the out of the box, do the right thing no matter what the culture is promoting, the go the extra mile to show an example of what hard work & doing your best work looks like, the ones that raise the bar because they know you can reach it…they see the gifts within the student & they strive to draw these gifts out fully.  I have had some of these teachers & most especially professors myself & our sons have had several of these teachers with callings too.  Post secondary school can be a pretty spectacular experience in that you finally get to take most of the courses that you want to take.  You are working towards your field of passion at long last.  There are some mandatory courses to meet degree requirements yet there are still lots of classes that we get to choose.  You know I love choices.  In second year university I found a course in English authors of absurdity.  I will tell you that to this day I have no idea what Kurt Vonnegut was talking about in most of his books yet it was so enjoyable reading authors that I would have otherwise not have crossed paths with.  I have never been a person that tries to phd (pile it higher & deeper) so if I did not understand what an author was getting at I did not start digging in the brown stuff.  Do you know people that do dig in the brown stuff though?  Sometimes they get away with it for a while.  Sometimes it backfires.  The professor of this English class was a gentleman by the name of Dr. McCormick.  He had a thick Scottish accent & looked every bit the part of a Scotsman & he had an intolerance for brown nosers.  He was forever announcing to our class whenever gifted speakers & authors were going to be at the university.  He would always follow up the announcement with “and starving students, there will be free coffee & donuts so you should go for that reason alone!”  He was quite a hoot.  When he wrote his first novel just after I graduated, my husband purchased the book for me & he & his buddy went over to Professor McCormick’s office & had him sign my book.  My husband’s friend was carrying his physics textbook so Dr. McCormick told him to hand that over & he put an absurd inscription in that too.  He was tremendously brilliant & eccentric & the real deal. 

Okay, back to second year English class.  After reading Harold Pinter’s “The Birthday Party”, Dr. McCormick did what he always did & asked us a barrage of questions to turn our brains on & then he set them upside down most times.  There was this boy in our class that always sat in the front roll & seemed to have his right arm welded upwards because he could not resist being in the spotlight & commenting on everything every single class.  He never learned though that this was not the class to try to bs in.  Dr. McCormick asked the class what the point to this novel was & this boy with the permanent hand in the air gave a real brown stuff on glass answer.  Warrior style, Dr. McCormick crushed his answer & called the boy out on his digging in the brown stuff.  I thought I was going to pass out when the professor said, “hey, brown haired, quiet girl that we have not heard from all term in the pink, what do you think.” (That was me).  All that came to mind was “it was entertaining.”  Then I prepared myself for the intellectual falling on my sword to come.  Instead of this though, I received from the professor, “exactly.”  He went on to say that sometimes in life a book is only just that, a book for entertainment & isn’t that reason enough at times.  Along those lines, I recently happened upon a quote by the painter Monet.  He stated that he detested it when people insisted that they understood his art when all they needed to do was to simply enjoy it.  He was likely referring to the people specifically that were trying to be over-relatable & that lead to the brown stuff on the glass.

That is what type 1 is like to me…it is what it is.  Do the people that I cross paths with that don’t have type 1 need to be over-relatable to the point where I see the brown stuff on the glass?  Type 1 is not entertaining obviously but it just is what it is. Just keeping it simple & honest is what wins my trust & heart every time.  We are each beautiful originals so what gets in my craw will not necessarily be the same for you.  What do we value though?  My list would include:  honesty, genuineness, compassion, care, love, and clean glass!

My heart’s hope for you is that you do not come across too much of the brown stuff on glass.  Instead, my hope is that you surround yourself with the real deal.

Smiles & Feisty love, Saundie :)

May the glass stay clean for you this week & next week's story is "Echoes, Noise & Shadows."    :D