Looking in the Rearview

Emma and I are going on our annual road trip back home to Wisconsin tomorrow. It's over a 9 hour drive. This will be our third time doing it and I get the same feeling of....worry?...fear?...stress?...I don't know how to describe it...but it's the same feeling I get the night before we leave every time.

I'm not afraid of the drive itself...or getting lost...or anything like that. I am afraid of the fact that the big D will be in the backseat with us. I'm afraid that she will rip her site out and I will have to do an impromptu site change on the side of the highway. I'm afraid that she will go low in the backseat and not be able to reach the juice boxes or get the straw open and into the box itself. I'm afraid that we will wind up sitting on the side of the highway in some random town in the middle of nowhere with no help in sight and I will be out of low snacks (which is a complete impossibility because I've packed enough low snacks to last her a month easily....but this is where my irrational mind goes on the eve of our trip) and I won't know what to do and I will sit there panicking and trying to flag down someone to help us and she will be crying and low and my worst nightmare will come true. I'm afraid that I will be driving down the highway and look in my rear view mirror and she will be asleep...but I will think she's passed out from a low and I will freak out. Basically I have all of those irrational thoughts and scenarios and visions running through my head. And I know they are irrational...and I know they are all things that most likely will not happen...but I still think of them. I still have to go through this process and I know once we are actually on the road, that I will be fine...she will be fine.

Looking in the rear view, I need to see her....not just the big D. I need to realize that I know what I'm doing...she knows what she's doing...and together we make an incredible team.

Looking in the rear view, I need to see all the miles we have travelled...literally and metaphorically. I need to allow myself to see them and realize that we have come a long way. We have not only just made it through some intensely difficult situations since D came into our lives, but we have lived them and experienced them and became better people and closer together because of them.

Looking in the rear view mirror, I need to see that the big things...the important things...the moments we remember and laugh about later, are all moments that had nothing to do with diabetes.

Diabetes may be in the back seat with us tomorrow, but I can always kick it out and strap it down in the trunk if it tries to be a backseat driver. I wish more than anything that I could kick it out of the car and laugh as it tumbles across the highway...but for now....for this moment...for this years road trip, I will settle for looking in the rear view mirror and sticking my tongue out at it instead.