During a discussion with a friend once about the possibility of a cure for diabetes, she was shocked when I told her I probably wouldn't take it. She asked me "Wouldn't you like to be normal?"
Wouldn't you like to be normal?
My, my, what a question. It took me a while to find the answer, and when I found it I realised that I didn't really have to search too far. I answered her question with a question, after a while thinking I smiled, turned to her and said "What's to say I'm not normal?" Let me assure you all now, a person with diabetes is not abnormal. I have studied abnormality in psychology and nowhere did I come across a sentence stating that a diabetic is abnormal. I'll give you, I'm not normal, but that's not anything to do with the diabetes, that is because I point blank refuse to follow a lot of conventional ideologies because they don't fit in what I class as moralistic or in any way shape or form decent. If normal is to backstab a business partner in order to get yourself higher in the workplace, then I refuse to do it. But I'm being obtuse here, I know what my friend meant, I merely had to question her choice of wording.
My friends definition of normal:
I am well aware that my friend was not implying in any way shape or form that I am for a second abnormal on account of my diabetes. What she meant, Is would I not like to live my life like I see the majority of my friends living it? Wouldn't I like to get up in the morning and not have to inject? Wouldn't I like to be exempt from going too low or too high and acting like a drunk person in the process? Wouldn't I like to drink alcohol with my friends, and then not have to check my blood sugars for signs of them dropping? I thought back to primary school, at 10am and 2pm where I would eat and try to avoid the eyes of my classmates, and the comments about how they would love to eat in class. I thought back to that first time in class 2 where I explained to my classmates about injecting and saw the look of shock and confusion on their faces-the first time I ever really felt seperate and exempt from my other classmates. I remembered a time, in secondary school, where the uneducated people in the year above me found out of my bringing injections to school, and mercilessly taunted me with "druggie" whenever they got the chance and asked me if I would supply them with some and would it get them high? I remembered this, then slightly shamefully, admitted to my friend that yes, I would like to be normal.
Temporary Lapses Get Us All, Its Where Do We Go From There?
That was one of my temporary lapses. If I had gone through being diabetic that many years, and watched my non-diabetic friends live their lives and not even for a fleeting moment wished "God, If only I were like them" I wouldn't be human. I don't care how optimistic a person is about being diabetic, we still aren't robots, and it's okay to feel sometimes that you'd rather be "normal" and not have to inject and test blood sugars every day-thats okay, dare I say it- That's normal! Diabetes is tedious at times, and it sure as hell isn't easy. Just remember that after your lapse, you can stand up again, carry on like you were before, accept that maybe you aren't exactly like your friends, but that doesn't mean you aren't normal, and smile again properly. Lapses are normal and common. Its normal to feel sometimes like life dealt you a bit of a rubbish hand- because to be fair it did, but it could have dealt you a worse one. Remember that.
Keep Smiling :)
Love, Tutti-Frutti
xxx
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