Instructions Not Included

Posted by Becky at 23:41 | Labels: dblog week | 0 comments |

I'm not sure why I currently have two pots there. Better than none, I suppose!

Posted by Becky at 23:58 | Labels: dblog week | 0 comments |

Wildcard time!

I've never been one for the whole 'where are my keys?' thing. I've always been pretty

good at keeping tabs on that. My phone? That's another story, but hey, I can call that.

But my meter? That I cannot seem to keep a hold of. 

'Ah?! Have you seen my meter? Where's my test kit?' is a frequent battle cry in my house. I shouted it around my office this evening  It's black, and in the world that I live and work in, there are lots of similar black things. I lose that flipping case all the time. Even when I did, once upon a time, have a bright pink case, I would still lose it.

So my dream device? That would have to be some sort of alarm or gps tracker for my meter. Some way I could call it like I do with my phone when I can't find that.

I think that would save a lot of heart in my throat moments, and a lot of headaches!

Posted by Becky at 23:33 | Labels: dblog week | 0 comments |

So, mantras? Positivity. After the surprisingly downbeat entries I've made this week, this makes a pleasant change. 

I like to think that I'm usually game for a challenge. Tell me I can't do something, and I'll generally want to do it, just to prove that I can. 

But then I get to that overwhelming, sticky bit in the middle, where it all feels a bit too much, and I want to get out. Stop the world, please - I want to get off! The problem of course is that unless something radical happens, we're not getting off this merry-go-round any time soon.

So what do you do?

I consider the ducks.

Huh?

Yeah, it's kind of an in joke passed on to me by my wonderful housemate. If you've been to the University of York, you know about ducks. The flipping things are EVERYWHERE - they even used to be on the student ID card, and oh was I sad when I had to trade in my duck card for a plain, boring one. Yorkies are proud of the ducks. 

Considering the ducks is another way of looking at Matthew 6:25-34. The ducks waddle around campus, not worrying about where food comes from, or what the day will bring, and yet they have bread and pondweed in abundance, don't mind the rain, and are more glorious even than the Vice Chancellor. Even when their little legs are paddling away like crazy beneath the water, they're just pedal boating, really. Even when they're working really hard they trust that despite everything, they will be ok.

So I consider the ducks. 

Posted by Becky at 23:55 | Labels: dblog week | 0 comments |

Posted by Becky at 22:52 | Labels: dblog week | 0 comments |

Posted by Becky at 23:46 | Labels: dblog week | 0 comments |

Weirdly, my last couple of posts have been about the things that get me really fired up. Bad, bad jokes and how they aren't as funny as one might initially think, and my current branch of advocacy, and how that gets me positively fired up, rather than just simply angry.

So I'm having to think hard about what I want to say here. Partially because I've had about a week and a half now of just awful levels - I can't seem to keep down in range (or even close), and I'm worn down, and partly because I feel that whatever I'm going to say is almost certainly being said better elsewhere. 

But then I thought more about how I'm feeling. Right now. Because of what D is throwing at me. Not physically, but emotionally. 

I feel sad. And a bit useless. And flat. And empty. And then all the words come out. Those words that attach to feelings that I don't always like to talk about. Because those words can take me to dark places, and that's a bit like balancing on a see-saw for me. 

This is a confession to you - reader, on the internet, and by proxy pretty much anyone who feels like seeing this. So basically the whole world. Potentially, anyway. I've not always had the easiest ride with emotional, and yes, I suppose mental health. I'm prone to long periods of what feels like 'empty balloon time' to me. Where all the puff, all the wind, the air, whatever it is that keeps me up and going, goes away. I can cope with a day of the blues, but I know what a day of the blue is compared to empty balloon time. When I'm just in a bad mood or a bit low, or, like today, I can pick up a book in a shop and start crying because, yes, that says exactly what I'm feeling just now (Michael Rosen's Sad Book, if you want to know. It's about death, but he describes sadness and emptiness in such an honest way). 

And I think all of this has a lot to do with the fact I'm running really high for an extended period of time. It messes with me emotionally, but though D might be the cause, my feelings are still my own, and having and admitting them is not something I should be ashamed of. But I'm not ON my own. I am by no means the only one with feelings like this, or with struggles that are even worse. 

Diabetes doesn't exactly give us time off. It's there all the time, even at the inconvenient moments, nudging away, wanting attention. I don't think it's surprising that people with diabetes are nearly twice as likely to experience mental health issues like depression or anxiety. It's also why I think it's important that we can admit that, hey it's not always easy. 

It's also why I respect and admire the work of all the team behind the You Can Do This Project. Like I said, we should never be ashamed of feelings that are less than 'shiny'. None of us are any less of a person for feeling negative feelings. At least that's what I'm telling myself today.

And honestly, this was not the post I was intending to write. I'm 100% sure where it came from. Which means it was probably exactly the post I needed to write.

 

 

Posted by Becky at 18:50 | Labels: dblog week, hypers | 1 comments |

Ah yes, here we are again. May Day. Common associations involve May Queens, maypole dancing, and for me, my diaversary. This year, five years. Wow, that's come and gone fast. I know that my blogging has got very, shall we say, sparse, but I thought this one was definitely worth marking. 

I thought about the sort of anniversary that your fifth anniversary is. If it was your wedding anniversary, the common gift is, according to the internet, wood. Now I thought that was especially poignant as I had been working on something else to bring you.

You might remember that back at the end of last year, I posted about finally starting to produce my own theatre under the name White Tree Theatre. Trees. Wood. See what I did there? Thematic linking, oh yes I think so! I talked about working on my one woman show about D advocacy, using the same name as this blog. 

Well it happened. And it was well received. So what I'm letting you know today is that, amongst my other diaversary day activities (which involved meeting a waitress who was a pump user during my lunch, and more attempts at gardening which ended badly), I finally managed to make a trailer for the show out of the recording that was made. 

It's not a great quality recording - I wasn't really doing the performance for camera, but you can hear everything, and what's more, you can hear audience reaction. It's just a little taste of what happened. 

I do have the whole thing recorded - it runs at about 40 minutes. I also have one of the Q&A sessions that I ran after the performance captured. I will be uploading an edited version of the Q&A in the next couple of days, and I can share the full performance recording on request. 

The really exciting thing, at least for me, is that since I performed it the first time back in November, I've had several people ask me how they can get me to come to their event. So what I'm doing is saying - ask me. Start a discussion. If I can get there, I'll try my hardest to come. If this show can help you or your community, I want to help.   

I've posted more information about what the show needs to operate on this page. Please feel free to pass the information forward if you can think of someone who might want to know about this. 

Five years. Yikes. Here goes year six, I suppose. 

Posted by Becky at 23:05 | Labels: advocacy, theatre | 1 comments |