A Day to Cry.

I’m not much of a crier and never have been. Not that I can’t relate to people who do cry often: it’s such a healthy outlet when one’s feeling more than it seems possible for any person to feel. There is one day every year that I give myself permission, I even encourage myself, to cry. Today is that day.

It won’t happen though; it rarely does on this day. My tear ducts are as obstinate as the rest of me.

What makes today a day unlike any other, emotional, entitled to self-pity (and worthy of a somewhat emo blog post)? I suppose I could provide several reasons.

It’s weird, I think, to experience a pivotal, monumental event that changes one’s life to the extent that one can no longer remember life before that event. It’s a blur, fuzzy, undefined because of the dominance of that event. The years preceding this day twelve years ago have been contaminated with that event, infused with the changes it created in my life so that it seems as though I’ve always been this way, from birth.

A chronic illness makes it hard to escape, to separate me from it: are we inextricably intertwined? Who would I be without diabetes? I like to think I’m more responsible, more compassionate, more independent, stronger because of this disease of mine. Who knows if that is actually true, apart from God. I cherish the friends I’ve made through diabetes, especially my best friend, Jessica. I like to wrap my mind around each positive way diabetes has shaped me, every warm, good memory I have because of diabetes.

That really is what makes it so hard to cry on demand today. I don’t see how I could live every day, going through the motions, if I gave into self-pity about something I can’t change. I certainly don’t have the worst disease, the heaviest burden to bear. Really I think that because diabetes has infiltrated its way so smoothly, so completely into my life, I don’t resent it as much anymore. I grumble at the inconvenience of it sometimes, twinge in discomfort with the shots occasionally, question what it would be like to be liberated from the drug I owe my life to. I can’t say I don’t dream of a cure.

But like my family, like my faith, like my patriotism, Midwestern roots, and addiction to literature, I cannot imagine the gap not having diabetes would create in my life. Would I still reach for my meter to take my blood sugar as soon as I wake up, before meals, when I’m shaky, when I don’t feel well, before climbing into bed? Would I go to push the button to take insulin on my pump that isn’t there, in my pocket? Would I look at food and not evaluate how many carbohydrates are in it? Perhaps it’s stupid to imagine that with sweet freedom I wouldn’t be the same person, wouldn’t know how to cope. To think that I could have some weird Stockholm syndrome-esque regard for diabetes. Maybe it’s too optimistic, too delusional, or even too pessimistic—after all, shouldn’t I be anticipating and hoping and praying for the cure that has to come eventually?

That’s another reason I can't cry today. I can’t help thinking of diabetics 100 years ago—who would have died immediately after getting diabetes—and diabetics forty years ago who would have been taking insulin in very painful, less effective, and high-maintenance injections. Even thinking back to my own diagnosis and the years following, I took five plus shots per day for many years, before I got an insulin pump two years ago. With the technological advances making my life as a diabetic easier year by year, it’s hard not to feel grateful in the face of the suffering of earlier diabetics.

Perhaps the real reason I’m not crying as I write this is that I enjoy defying expectations. That’s what everyone expects diabetics to do on the anniversary of getting their chronic illness, I imagine: cry, pretend the day doesn’t exist, wallow in self-pity. That’s why it’s awkward to tell people I’m “celebrating” my diabetic “birthday” (to be fair, what is someone supposed to reply to that: "Congratulations!"?). It would be healthy to cry, especially since a diabetic can’t exactly say, “Well today is a special day, so I’ll just take a break from insulin today—it’ll be fine. No big.” It all makes sense, all the reasons to be sad today. I just made a decision a few years ago to actively recognize this day and ask my family and friends to celebrate it with me. I want to rejoice in the blessings I’ve received, in how healthy I am despite having diabetes, how much easier my disease is to manage today.

So year twelve of diabetes will start off on a positive note. My stuffed animal (or stuffed organ, technically, I suppose), Patty the Pancreas (a present from my mom when I had been recently diagnosed), and I will have lunch with my friends and celebrate all the trouble and all the joy this rather unlovable disease has brought into my life.