Well today is Day 3 for Karen Graffeo’s (who blogs and hosts at Bittersweet Diabetes) Diabetes Blog Week. The fifth annual Diabetes Blog Week started Monday and will take place through May 18th. Day 3: What Brings Me Down………but wait (he says).
This sounds like it could be a very depressing topic doesn’t it? I’m sure we can all create a list a mile long. So let’s try to spin what we can do to address some of the things that get us down and how to pull up and out of them. Those who know me know how much I LOVE Snoopy. Every time Snoopy gets shot-up by the Red Baron, he is able to pull up and out. He finds a way to land. He finds a way to move on. And he works at being cool. Let’s do the same.
Long, Long night. Checking-rechecking.–It is a these times more than any other I become grateful that they are alive. They are fighting. Even while sleeping; they are fighting. Rocky? He fought the good fight and every time an ‘all nighter’ occurs, I know they are fighting. Fighting is alive. I will fight right along side them.
The tears when they feel they are so different–Ahhhhhhh–opportunity. Yes, I said opportunity. We get to remind our kids more than most how unique they are, they get a little tougher than others, and they realize how to deal with ‘the world’ probably much quicker than those……..well who are not so unique. Seize this opportunity and embrace how you are given the opportunity to empower your kids.
The thoughts of how unfair –it sure is. Done yet? That is about all I give it. You have two choices, it owns you or you own it. I have said it a million times and I have reminded myself a million times. There are things we cannot control when it comes to diabetes, we all know them; what we can do is control what we can control and that is the attitude in which we face it. We know people (and so do you) who have a life of which we would never trade. What a life of hell they have faced because of the ‘unfairness’ of life. And yet, people gravitate to their spirit, their humor, their appreciation of life…..ask yourself; “Why is that?” Gripe or groove. I’ll hang with the grooves, thank you.
Today SUCKS!–Yup! And tomorrow will come. I know so many people who have diabetes and their spirit amazes me. At the top of this list is my daughter, Kaitlyn. She has bad days and sometimes they can be real doozies, but I often marvel at how she handles them. Every day is a gift for Kaitlyn and watching her open it each day gives me enormous power to face whatever it is that lays before me. Tomorrow the sun will rise—-bask in it or let it burn you; the CHOICE IS ALWAYS ours.
Poor me!!!!—when this thought happens, I find something to sink my teeth into. I help someone. I do something. You too, do something. Sometimes seeming insignificant; but as long as it is not something for yourself and helping someone else; you will realize just how much power you have over this feeling.
Will these work all of the time? Of course not. But let’s take another look at Snoopy. Ever wonder why so many people in that comic strip want to just ‘hang with him’; because he is so up, that’s why. Life is cool. But Snoopy makes it that way, he grabs ‘LIVING’. I get it, we do not live in a comic strip but I would rather be the person who works at looking toward the positive and grabbing life for everything good. Know this, it takes work. But it’s worth it. It’s easy to be the person who is always down and no matter what happens in life, it’s always so down.
Good grief.
I am a diabetes dad.
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