Take time

Did you know that it's ok to say no? It is....really....I mean the world won't suddenly implode if you do. People won't hate you. Friends won't desert you. The skies will not open up with deafening thunder and vicious claps of lightening.

Time will keep ticking away....people will get over it...they will find a way to do it on their own or ask someone else. It will be ok. You don't have to do everything and be everything all of the time. You need to sit down, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and just.....be. It doesn't mean you are not good enough. It doesn't mean you failed. It doesn't mean you are a bad Mom or a bad friend or a bad person.

Take time for yourself...whether it's five minutes or five hours....don't forget to take time for yourself. Diabetes has a tendency to become all consuming some days. It seeps into your thoughts and your feelings when you're not always expecting it. It can sometimes make you feel like you're drowning in a sea of numbers desperately searching for that pattern amidst the chaos...your life raft of consistency.

When Emma was born, everyone told me...sleep when she sleeps...take naps with her...it's the only way you will survive. When she was diagnosed, I quickly learned that diabetes doesn't sleep....so I couldn't just apply the same advice and sleep when she sleeps or nap with her. At times it feels like it's me against the world....this big world full of uncertainties and problems with no solution. I live in a perpetual state of coffee assisted semi-controlled chaos...interspersed with sleep that is too short a time length to be considered "sleep" and too long to be considered a "nap."

So, I take time for me. I take time to just....be. I take a minute or sixty to just be Amy....not Shawn's wife...not Emma's Mommy...not Mrs. Ermel...just me...only me...the me I am beneath all of those layers...the me I've always been. Sometimes I lay down on the floor next to the cat and feel her purring beneath my hand as I pet her. Sometimes I watch ridiculously stupid programs on TV...ones that have characters named Snooki...or involve Amish kids trying out life in L.A....I watch them because they require no thinking on my part...and they make me laugh. Sometimes I pour myself a cup of coffee, sit down on the couch, close my eyes, and slowly sip the warm deliciousness. Sometimes I turn the radio up extra loud as I drive down the highway and sing along at the top of my lungs...not caring who sees me or if I look silly. And sometimes I just sleep....curled up under my soft comfy blanket...the cat at my feet...sleeping silently...dreamlessly...peacefully.

Whatever it is you choose to do, is the right thing to do. Don't lose yourself in this disease. Don't lose yourself in this life. It's too easy to get lost and find yourself beginning to drown. It's hard to hang on. It's hard to keep going. It's hard...but it's not impossible.