Farewell

Last week I made the announcement that I was retiring from blogging for Diabetes Self-Management. Over four and a half years and almost every Thursday without fail I found a way to string observances, anecdotes, thoughts, and life experiences together in 500 to 1000 words, sharing with you my life with Type 1 diabetes. Some mornings it took every last bit of oomph I had to muster the will to get started. Many mornings I sat at the keyboard with no clue of what it was I wanted to say. I can tell you, however, that without fail I felt wonderful after every click of the mouse that sent my weekly entry on its way.

Your comments over the past week wishing me luck as I move forward sans blog, and your telling me how much my blog’s meant to you over the years, have been touching. I appreciate your breaking your silence, those of you who’ve never commented before, to let me know that in some small way you were benefiting from the same things I benefited from. Writing this blog, as I’ve said before, has been instrumental in my learning to cope with a life with a chronic illness.

Often while composing a week’s entry I would hear in my head the “unexamined life is not worth living” quotation, albeit skewed slightly to accommodate my circumstance: The examined life with chronic illness keeps me living. I refused — and I will continue to refuse — to allow diabetes to get the better of me. I chose to embrace this disease (I’m using the word embrace for lack of a better term at the moment.) Facing this disease with a community of people — this wonderful online diabetes community — who shared their stories, who passed along their wisdom, made things better, easier.

Reading your comments each week, participating in discussions, and gaining insight from others’ blogs both here and Internet-wide makes this farewell and rather anticlimactic entry difficult to write. I had grand ambitions to comb over my past entries and find nuggets of wisdom — assuming there were some — that I’d long forgotten I’d shared. Then there was the idea that I would provide a long list of lessons I’ve learned about living with diabetes, lessons culled from those previous entries. But grand ambition failed me.

What can I say? Thank you for allowing me to share with you. May your self-management be the best you can make it.

Take care,

Eric

POST A COMMENT