my sister asked me "why" i write this blog.  it has not gained any followers yet, i don't even know that it will.  besides, she said it is hard to read because she too carries memories.  i never underestimate ones reality, but with all due respect, this is a blog that is unique to the TID.  it is a life that one can witness, but the thread of the life is ours alone.  im certain seeing a seizure is hard, but having one, that is what i am writing about.  seeing the bruises hurts but combatting them is like swallowing fire.  surviving multitudes the source of those moments, that is what i am writing about. and there is no memory that can measure what it feels like versus what it looks like. 

now, "why" i am writing, well,  i want the world to know how i make it day to day.  i want TIDs with no one to talk to, to know that there are others.  and our stories are not unique among the breast of one another.  the Pessimists might say "suck it up."  they might say i was born to the tunnels of infinite darkness.  this may be true.  i have no other choice but to make it through. therefore,  sympathy is a feeling i resent.  the "awwww, it must be so hard on you" makes my stomach turn.  everyone has a "cross to bare" and to advertise mine as something more than what it is would be cynical and comical to say the least.  it is a liveable life.  but i think had i known the ways to get through, the detours, and exits, things might be different for me.  so i will give what i know, so that things might be different for someone else.  the story, the moments, that is what i use to give other people a vision of possibility and myself, a place to display the colors of my days and nights.  so i guess subconsciously, i CHOOSE happiness.  the reality is, what i have sought has often ended in opposition of what i have found. i liken this experience to ripened fruit.  the sweeteness of the best selections comes with a heightened price.  to live an organic life, we have to make great conscious steps toward that which we seek.  so if the tunnel was dark, in order to save the grace of my sanity, i went forward with my journey.  i cry in private. i pray that the lights will be on by the time i reach the tunnel's end, and if not, i teach myself to rub sticks together and ignite a light of my own.  not only then am i proud of having found my own light and energy source, but in knowing that i have found and widened my muscle mass in the process.  i write this blog for those like me seeking to widen their muscle mass. 

i write this for the kid that never got called on in class, one who could never afford to fully understand the celebration of Halloween and feasts of Christmas dinners without worry, the one who had to grow up fast, learn to run fast when her body screamed otherwise- fast enough to save her own life.  i type this for the child who was doing algebraic equations in her head, not for class, but to multiply the units of insulin subtracted by the blood sugar goal divided by the possibility of getting the dose right.  i write this for the same child who by the time she reached highschool algebra, was bored with math because she'd learned every number's relation to the next in drawing up syringes and doing advanced math without paper, pencils, calculators or help. she learned the hard way when she messed up. the child for whom only the right answer to the decimal, would suffice.  broken syringes were her abacus.  she learned to count, by sorting them, hoping the number would end.  i write this for them.  

i write this for those who like me, were of a world that birthed itself backwards.  see, i was born an adult had the credence of responsibility climbing my then emaciated back. childhood evoked feelings of razors peeking between my yearnings for normalcy and the reality of what was; the teasing, the embarrassment, the shame. they all cut along my backside, engraved into my spine.  i still feel it.  the movies of the memories, what ones i remember, i resent.  so i write this for the people that can testify to those particulars.  the words engraved read, "WOUNDED. DO NOT TREAT. UNABLE TO HEAL.   those statements are not entirely true, but  in my mind at the ages of 8, 9, 10, 11, that is what i believed. i have to work to encourage myself otherwise.   when i was diagnosed at 5 years old, i had no idea what diabetes was, hell i had no idea where the bathroom was. it was not until my preteen years that diabetes became a main character in my idea of living.   it was the "other" family member.  it was at the dinner table, it was in the car on the way to school, it was in my pillow at night, it was on my ceiling in the morning.  it was always there. so i write this for the people who also live with this impostor, to tell you how i coexist with an unwanted roommate.  how we have learned to reside within one another. 

an interruption of dreams, this life has been.  i often believe it interrupted the lives of my sister and parents.  i want to tell them, it was not my plan.  so i write this to purge the guilt that i carry in my hand bag.  the baggage i cant seem to sell.  i want them and other families to know, that my  hope was always for the light and never the nightmares.  we dont want our families to have to see us like this, to have to live by a clock the way we do, to have to think about things that are too morbid to embrace.  now, as i am approaching 30 years old, and 26 of them with diabetes,i want more than light.  i want my family to know that i am ok, really.  that i am not afraid of the doors before me, that i appreciate all the years they held my hand and suffered through it all.  the doors they held open behind me.  they stayed with me, when so-called friends left.  they stayed with me when i acted ugly or took it our on them. they stayed with me because they saw the light i am only beginning to call mine.  and i will be damned if diabetes dictates otherwise.  

so realistic or not, i want to be a prism.  a prism-  the point where light touches rays of itself and reflects itself back unto its origin; the point where revolution happens and visions are coated in intangible multi-dimensional colors made of the spirals of themselves bending backward, a confusion of touchable magic and questionable reality. yeah, there are and were times when i just wanna be like everyone else, but God took the time to do something different with me- because it was apparent then, that i could handle that much. remember, i was born backwards.  i always took advocacy of diabetes as my obligation.  as my heartfelt honor. but this blog is to exemplify the times when i want/ed out. 

 i used to want to be "an astwo-not! a fiya-man! a teeeee-cherrrrrrr!" on sick days, i just wanted to sleep.  on sad days, i wanted to cry.   but in the midst of my writing and maturity, i have learned that as a prism, i can be the color for another, i can be the vision of of will and strength.i will detail the times when i reflect myself upon myself to give you the colors of what i have seen.   the words i choose omit and maybe even regret, are those that at this moment the sun caught a glimpse of so that is had to be reflected.  a prism.  these are the lasting images i want to leave in words.  words give us more power than any medicine ever could, more than any science might hope to advance.  i commemorate these words and feelings that have long aborted me but reemerge every now and again, to let that little boy on oklahoma know, to let the little girl in san diego know, to let the parents of diabetic teens know, a teacher, friend, sibling of a diabetic know, that this is  life changes minute by minute.  it is one that is often over buttered and under explained by media and research, and yet it effects millions of americans, most of whom are our children.  to say "i have type one diabetes and i may get sick or i take insulin" is an insulting understatement of what this thing truly is.  i aim to clarify though my experience, similar feelings of millions of others.  we are often misunderstood, freakish, alone, underestimated, overmedicated, frustrated and frankly pissed off.  i have to write this. i have so much to tell that in the end, it may seem that i have said nothing. but for those of you who want to or already understand, it will make sense.  you will just "get it".  i write this blog to reveal to the best of my recoiled and bittersweet nostalgia the epic, the politics, the science, the psychology of a disease.  i write this to hypnotize you to my recall, to enchant you by the prism that i will myself to create, everyday i live...so from this blog, i will begin the story.  stay tuned.