7 years later, 19 years in.

The post titled, Still a Little Broken, popped up in my Facebook memories today. I read it as an outsider, sad for the girl that wrote the words. But then the memories came creeping back in. The brokenness that I lived with returned to me in powerful waves. I remembered clearly the heaviness of the day to day. I saw perfectly the worry that affected the person I was.

I was more broken than I admitted to you that day.

But life molds us. And as we move forward, perspectives change. I presume aging has something to do with it too. We experience unthinkable tragedies and we survive. Fear hardens and turns into strength. Knowledge becomes power. And most of all, the brokenness becomes a powerful cohort.

Everything that I've experienced in my life has given me the tools to cope with the background music of Diabetes.

I don't let it control my emotions like I once did.

Maybe I'm numb.

Maybe I'm smarter.

Maybe I'm dumber.

But somehow, not on purpose, I stopped letting Diabetes control my entire being.

I was able to let go of the debilitating guilt. (Not all the guilt, I'm a mother after all.) But most of it.

I Don't fault myself for living the way I did for so many years. In fact, I probably needed to be that way. It hurts me to think about. It was hard.

But now I can look at the numbers without fear, or anger.  Because I have to. If I took them personally I would go insane. They come to me every five minutes, twenty four hours a day. The numbers will never stop.

Like driving a car we constantly adjust the wheel to keep things going in the right direction. Even when going down a straight highway we need to adjust...there's no taking the hand off the wheel. We try not to veer off the road, but know if we do, we have the tools to fix the car and move on.

We'll always be driving together. As the kids grow they take turns taking the wheel, but I'm there if they get tired, or reckless. Someday I'll be kicked out of the car, but right now I'm still riding along...

And somewhere along the way, I don't know when it happened, I realized that we have control over the stereo. Not diabetes. All it took was our changing the station.

The background music is what we want it to be.

It sounds easier than it was. But it was a simple concept nonetheless.

I don't let Diabetes change who I am anymore. But it built me.

The person I am today stands on the foundation that I built with blood, sweat, and tears for years and years.  Though I don't stand on the foundation as the slave that I was. I stand proudly on my work and own myself now. I am the ruler of my life.

Well, most of the time. Life is crazy after all.

More than anything I just want those of you who are building your foundations to know, that later, you'll be thankful for the work your putting in now.  To each of you in all the phases of your lives, someday the worry you hold will be an asset, not a liability.

"Everything will be ok in the end. And if it's not ok, than it's not the end."

I use to tell myself that all the time.

Now I don't have to, because I know it.



Cheers to you and all your hard work.

You are loved.