Movement.

Although I’m sitting exactly where I was this time last year - inside my parent’s house in the good old suburbs of Portland, Oregon - the truth is I’ve spent most of the past year anywhere but.

Movement was the theme for 2007, and the year took me from my idyllic childhood home in the quiet Oregon suburbs to my last few weeks at the University of Oregon to the bustling metropolitans of New York City and Los Angeles. I spent my summer adjusting to my new life and my new job in New Jersey and exploring my new surroundings with trips to eastern Pennsylvania, Philadelphia and many trips to New York City. My one excursion was to Chicago for the BlogHer ‘08 conference.

The Indian summer left plenty of opportunities for more adventures: a long weekend in Providence and Boston to see Mel and Bernard, a trek out to western New Jersey to visit Wendy’s family farm’s harvest festival, and a whirlwind two day trip to Washington D.C. to see Jill and an old friend and her son.

My year was filled with meeting new “old friends” with diabetes, but the actual illness managed to stay on the back burner of my mind as I focused on the more pressing issue of getting the rest of my life balanced and under control. It wasn’t until the end of the year that diabetes crept back onto the main stage, with finding a new endocrinologist, frustrating high blood sugars, and my first experience with being identified as a diabetic outside of my comfort zone.

My new life has had some very exciting moments - including one World Diabetes Day event, two movie premieres and three Broadway plays. It has also led to bouts of homesickness. Months ago I referred to a quote from Garden State, about how a home becomes an imaginary place after you move away from your childhood home. But I think what this year and all this movement has taught me is that I have homes everywhere. I have a home in Oregon. I also have a home in New Jersey. There is the cliche that “home is where the heart is.” But I believe that home is also a feeling. I have a home in a booth at Mimi’s Cafe in California, I have a home on the streets of Washington D.C., I have a home at a fancy restaurant in Manhattan, I have a home on the Brooklyn Bridge, I have a home in a park in Philadelphia.

I miss the feeling of associating home with a place, though, and my resolution - or simply my hope - for 2008 is for that to become a reality. For home to become a place that I go to, not just a fleeting feeling.

The movement is exciting and I cherish these experiences, but I crave stability. I crave the routine and the familiarity and the peace that comes from having a home you love and want to come back to. I always thought I was too young to need something like that, but I think it’s something everyone needs. I’m going to try very hard in 2008 to find it.

Wishing you a very happy 2008!

Quite A Time.

I am not exactly disappointed that November is over, considering I have posted three memes in the last week (an all-time record for me), but I am thankful (seems to be a theme this month, no?) that I did NaBloPoMo. I think it really allowed me to do more self-examining than I typically do on this blog.

It’s been quite a whirlwind of a month, as well, as it coincided with National Diabetes Month and World Diabetes Day.

There were many memorable moments. Adorable children, lively and creative. A brief bout of homesickness. Educational opportunities from mainstream media - some insightful, some frustrating. Eternal thankfulness. World Diabetes Day - the first recognized by the U.N. - celebrated in style around the globe. An award-winning meltdown. The Angry Eye. My first East Coast thanksgiving. New friends that feel like old friends. More frustrations with diabetes, and more reminders that I am not alone.

I wonder what December will bring.

Have a great weekend. I’ll see you on Monday.

Meh?

We’re on Day 18 of this month-long challenge of writing something everyday. But I have a little secret to tell you:

I’m boring.

No, really.

Though after this past week of excitement, I certainly appreciated the downtime of the weekend. What did I do? Well, I returned a pair of red patent leather flats that I bought last weekend at DSW and exchanged them for a larger size and then returned a pink sweater from Old Navy and bought a pair of green leather loafers from Nine West that were on sale. On Saturday, I spent a couple hours at the mall, trying to get ideas for Christmas presents. Unfortunately, my parents are now using this blog to check in on me so I can’t bounce off any ideas. I also bought couple button-down blouses from Banana Republic, even though they weren’t on sale because I’m one of those girls who has a very difficult time with those kinds of tops (ladies, you know what I mean…).

Last night I chilled out at home, cleaned my room, watched some TV and worked on a couple of freelance projects.

Then today, I slept in ridiculously late, went grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s, picked up my new, enlarged prescription of insulin from CVS. Somehow the insurance company came under the assumption that I only need five bottles of insulin to last me three months. When I lived in Oregon, I received three bottles once a month. I have no idea how the messages got mixed about but I was literally running out of insulin last week. Yeah, try going through World Diabetes Day knowing you have three and half days of insulin left… kinda puts things into a unique perspective. Anyway, made a couple of phone calls to my doctor and she called in a new prescription on Tuesday for nine bottles of insulin (or 3 bottles a month). Picked up one bottle on Wednesday, and then the rest today. I have one bottle of insulin at work, and I have 8 bottles of insulin sitting in my fridge. With all these bottles at once, I kinda feel like I have lifetime supply of insulin… except for, you know, not.

Came home and made dinner using ingredients from TJ’s, which ended up not tasting as good as I’d hoped. Now I’m getting ready to spend a couple of hours working on, well, work before starting our two and half day workweek. Yes! Thanksgiving! I’m actually excited because I’m going down to my dad’s cousin’s house. It will be nice to see family.

See you tomorrow!

And Then There Were Many.

“United Nations, please.”

I couldn’t help but grin as the cab pulled away from Penn Station early yesterday morning.

Although many people believe the first United Nations recognized World Diabetes Day has been months in the making, I know different. This event has been years in the making, going all the way back to a summer in 2001 in the Rosenfeld’s kitchen in Eugene, Oregon where the seeds of this idea were sown.

And now I was here, in Manhattan, on my way to one of the dozens of events in honor of World Diabetes Day.

Emotions swirled around this event as we gathered in the courtyard of the United Nations, overlooking the East River. We were anxious, we were excited, we were hopeful. We were proud

It was a Who’s Who of events, and a friend and I joked it was much like a small conference. In attendance were Jeff Hitchcock of CWD, Nicole Johnson and Mother Love from dLife, Zippora Karz (a former ballerina for the NYC Ballet) and Phil Southerland (lead cyclist for Team Type 1). I also saw Kim Kelly, and had my picture taken with Charles Renfroe and Dr. Fran Kaufman. I saw my friend Noah Moore and Clare Rosenfeld, the co-creator of the Unite for Diabetes Campaign. We huddled together for a group hug and photo.

After the blue umbrellas were passed out, we were lead down to the UN Rose Lawn for a speech by the Ambassador of Bangladesh and a performance of the “Promise to Remember Me” song by Elliot Yamin and a group of JDRF youth advocates. I enjoyed listening to the song, though I’m embarrassed that I don’t remember a word of the song (though in my defense, it has been six years).

We circle together with our umbrellas held high overhead, the United Nations looking down on the blue circle forming in their backyard.

Our march along First Avenue was comical. Led by a procession of bagpipers, we marched from the United Nations to the rally venue at Guastavinos under the 59th Street Bridge. Despite what the itinerary may say, it certainly took us more than 246 steps to walk the fifteen blocks uptown! As we marched with our umbrellas raised, people stopped on the streets and stared out of apartment windows. It was hard to differentiate between normal New York City honking and World Diabetes Day honking, but I’m pretty sure a couple cars joined in the fun!

At the rally, my diabetes radar was in full effect and I managed to spot Seonaid from across the venue (thank you Facebook photos!). We toured the upstairs exhibit area, where I spoke with a representative of the Inspired By Diabetes campaign and picked up a miniature version of the Changing Diabetes bus. I also chatted with some representatives of the AADE and met Christopher Thomas from DiabeticRockstar.com.

Of course, I took dozens of photos and you can see all of them in my World Diabetes Day 2007: NYC Edition Flickr gallery.

That night, as I returned to Penn Station, I stood on the street corner and completed the day with a viewing of the Empire State Building glowing in our blue.

When I came home, I started downloading the photos I had taken that day, clearing out and deleting the fuzzy photos or the one of Seonaid’s and my shoes. I also link-hopped through the blogosphere to see what buzz was made about World Diabetes Day. I think we had more posts than we did on D-Blog Day!

Despite the excitement of the actual event, reading the blogs were very sobering. Today is another diabetes day. So is tomorrow. And the day after that, and the day after that.

It doesn’t seem like World Diabetes Day should have anything remotely close to the word “happy” attached to it.

I am not happy that I have diabetes. I do not like diabetes, nor have I ever. I am not happy that every 10 seconds a person dies from diabetes-related complications or that in the same 10 seconds, two new people are diagnosed. I am not happy that no one knows there are different kinds of diabetes or how to tell them apart. I am not happy that in Mozambique, if a person were diagnosed today, they would most likely not live to see next year’s World Diabetes Day. I am not happy that in poor countries, a family can expect to spend one-quarter of their entire income on medication. I am not happy that diabetes not only takes lives, but takes quality of life away from so many people.

I am not happy about diabetes.

But I will tell you what I am happy about. I will tell you who I am grateful for. I will tell you what I celebrate.

I am happy that there are people who care enough about this to make it change.

I am grateful and oh so proud of my friend Clare Rosenfeld and her mother Kari for thinking of this idea and have the generosity and fortitude to make sure it happened.

I celebrate that children around the world could see the blue shining in their home country and know that there was someone out there who is trying to help them.

Just like how we all stare into the same sky, dreaming about what could be out there, we all stared at the blue yesterday and dreamed about what could be out there: a diabetes-free future.

I am grateful for the doctors in these nations who work tirelessly to help people, with such little resources.

I am happy that, 85 years after Dr. Frederic Banting created man-made insulin, I am not only alive but I am living, that I have supportive friends and family, that I have the opportunity to help make a difference.

I celebrate the excitement and hope that so many of my friends and colleagues share. We haven’t given up. That is something to celebrate.

Happy World Diabetes Day. Welcome to a new beginning of doing great things.

More photos from World Diabetes Day, as well as more statistics about global diabetes, can be found on the World Diabetes Day website.