I have a 10k trail run scheduled next month, so I decided to run in a nearby park today so I could get some quality hill work in preparation for the 10k.
I had a lot to think about during my run this morning. I found out about a potential complication of type 1 diabetes yesterday. (I feel for my friend and her husband; this diagnosis must have been stressful since it is so little-known and any cancer scare is, well, a cancer scare.) Every time I hear about one of these little-known complications I kind of go through my entire emotional routine and feel like I face my disease more head-on than usual.
As I’m running around this county park, I’m thinking these thoughts and my run is just generally difficult today; my eating yesterday was far from ideal and man the hills feel tough. I am also thinking about my friends who live in the Midwest, and wondering if they have hills like these to run around in. So, I’m thinking about how I would describe where I am to those who don’t live in the Bay Area. Would I call them mountains? Would I call them hills?
I determined that my answer depends entirely on where I am when I describe them: am I at the bottom, or am I at the top? If I’m at the bottom, they are mountains; when I get to the top, they are much more like hills.
The way I get from the bottom of the mountain to the top of the hill? One little step at a time, one after the other, all the way.
This is precisely how I need to deal with my diabetes and face possible/ potential complications. I know that I will face complications at some point. I feel lucky that the complications I have already faced have been minor and manageable, and yet I am pretty sure any complication will become less minor and have a bigger impact on my life as I age.
But I think, for me, I need to face that knowledge the same way I faced the hills on my run this morning. Acknowledge what I’m looking up at, recognize it will be difficult, and also recognize that my perspective will change as I progress through and past any issue. I need to just keep going, one little step after another.
I do what I can do every day with my disease; I require that of myself for my health now and for my health later. But I also know that even if I were able to do everything there is to do every day, there are no guarantees; no one knows all there is to know about diabetes and its long term effects. And that has to be enough for me.
I need to be proud of the steps I can and do take, and I need to keep taking them and keep going. We all do.
Here’s to us.
