Through the Suckage*

Do I still know how to blog? I doubt it but I did remember the password!

I have been thinking I should try, for old time sake if nothing else. The anniversary of D-Blog weeks passed came and went this month. I felt a little wistful for the Diabetes Online Community.  

First terror. D-Blog week always terrified me. An assigned, specific topic, every day, for a whole week!

That was 180 degrees from my writing approach. Significantly most of the time there wasn’t (and isn’t) that much in my head.  Who wanted to hear the marbles rattling around. Also deadline panic. My approach was “what ever pops into my head, when it does, and watch it morph into something totally unrelated to the original idea that popped up” so I had the fear of being way off topic.

But maybe off topic was the whole point. The heart of the diabetes online community was an  collaborative reaction to a decidedly sucky condition. Yes diabetes could be awful, we’re were all justifiably sick of drawing that particularly short straw in life. But everyones’ life has short straws. It wasn’t simply diabetes. The reaction to life that is what mattered. 

I have frequently said diabetes is a catalyst. It makes other life stuff happen faster or in ways that wouldn’t happen otherwise. That was certainly true about my blogging, It happened in weird ways that wouldn't have happen otherwise. 

The DOC helped me appreciate others’ challenges and I am grateful for the lessons. To me, the best pieces were those that frankly addressed the suckage with some kind of through line. I respected getting, or trying to get, through as positive movement. Not an overly sweet pollyanna but a next step forward, even if that step is writing about just sitting with it. A through line was the point. We can each do our sucky things with a little help knowing our friends are doing theirs too. And our friends were not just the diabetes online community but a larger universe of people with Chronic Life Suckage. 

The key attributes were appreciation, gratitude, respect - not the suckage. The suckage was acknowledged in the effort to find the other stuff - the better stuff. The community sped up my ability to be better at appreciation, gratitude and respect. 

What a gift! Thanks to you all. 

The internet has become a festival of memes. Short, often mean, and decidedly shallow. I miss reading others thoughtful views on the effort to find lines throughs it all. It inspired me to try as well. That is what made the community. 

I miss serious, if not solemn, thoughtful uplifting, or at least get through the suckage, inspiration. (That is a crappy sentence. I’m sticking with it.)

I’m choosing to look and finding the gifts. There are there when I see past the ads, memes, and blatantly false crap. I have friends who; daily celebrate birthdays accompanies with fascinating music history, take great photographs, celebrate lesser know people who made the world better, art, science, higher purpose, relevant health industry news, books, and more. 

I am looking to celebrate the through line of appreciation, gratitude, and respect in the age of meme suckage. 

For what it is wroth this is absolutely nothing like what I sat down to write, so 100% on brand. 

Your Blog May Vary. 

• The spelling robot and word police doesn’t like SUCKAGE - suck it robot - I like it. But I do appreciate spelling help. If CLS becomes a standard abbreviation for Chronic Life Suckage it would be funny and probably piss off Mercedes.