Skating

When I was in middle school, the weekend activity of choice was Young's Regency Skating Center, out on rt 73 in Blue Bell. Dropped off by someone's mom, we'd spend the afternoon skating, crushing on the teenage staff, and crossing our fingers that the right someone would ask us to join them in a couples skate.

Skating wasn't exactly one of my strengths, but it was where the action was, so I did my best to learn. Eventually, I was solid enough on eight wheels to glide around at a respectable pace, and even though I couldn't spin in circles or skate backwards, I was at least not spending the entire afternoon glued to the railing.

I would find my rhythm and circle the rink, solidly making progress.

That is, until I smiled. When I would relax and smile I would invariably find myself falling. In a flash, I'd be splayed out on the wooden rink floor, red-faced and sore.

I find the same thing to be true of my diabetes care.

I don't consider myself to have ever had the excellent control that many of my diabetes peers write or speak about (even when pregnant, though the tools and standards were different back then). But for the most part, I work hard, I get around at my own pace, and I have success in managing my disease.

Sometimes the things that trip me up are beyond my control and I have to struggle to regain my balance, but I do so knowing that these are the unexpected bumps or collisions of life. It's easier to pick myself up and brush myself off when I'm laughing it off alongside another skater who has also fallen. It's easier to say, "well, yes, that knocked me for a loop, but what can you do?"

But othertimes, I just simply relax and before I know it, my diabetes feet are out from under me. Sometimes, my meter is out of sight, my strip prescription overdue, or even my insulin supply is running low. My exercise routine (such as it is) gets ignored for a day, then a week, then I can't even find my sneakers. And food? Well, I'm always one mis-step away from putting aside what little self-restraint I have in that regard. If my meter's not around to tell the blood sugar tale of the box of thin mints devoured, I can convince myself that it never happened.

On occasion, I find myself and my diabetes figuratively splayed out on the roller rink floor.

Sooner or later, I sit up and tighten my laces in a sheepish move to make it look like I meant to sit down just now. I kneel on one knee and place a skate back on the floor. I find my footing and slowly begin to roll again. Because flat-out on the rink floor is no way to spend an afternoon, and knocked down is no way to live with diabetes.