Diabetes Blog – Happy-Medium.net

You may have noticed that this is still Diabetes Awareness Month. You may have also noticed that I haven’t exactly been blowing up social media with post after diabetes post.

There are a number of reasons for that.

I’m beginning to wind down a very busy year. I do have a few extra days off the next six weeks. But I’ve already spent more than half of my days off from work this year actually working on diabetes advocacy, and I don’t exactly want to spend a lot of my remaining days off working on something that could easily seem like a second job if I let it.

Plus, there are more than enough voices, loud voices, shouting into the air all through November. I don’t mind that at all. Also, I don’t feel the need to compete with those voices. In addition, I don’t feel the need to raise my voice and make it louder just because it’s November.

Part of my success, and part of my sanity, involves remembering that my voice is just the right size already. I’ll make it louder when necessary. But I tend to see “necessary” on a moment-by-moment basis, rather than as a scheduled month-long advocacy extravaganza.

So, at the end of a five day weekend, I can look back at about a half dozen fix-it projects completed around the house. A little extra time in the kitchen cooking. A whole lot of time listening to music. You know… the boring stuff.

Here’s the thing: the boring stuff is important to my diabetes, and to my overall health too. I like being useful, getting my hands dirty now and then. I like to be creative in the kitchen. It’s also important to take the time to be still, allowing myself to consider some of the things I haven’t paid much attention to in the past several months.

So there you have it… my “I’m glad for Diabetes Awareness Month, but I’m also over it” post. The truth is, we need Diabetes Awareness Month and World Diabetes Day. But we also need diabetes efforts throughout the year, in front of medical professionals, on Capitol Hill, in the classroom, in the workplace, from voices everywhere.

There’s room, and a time, for all of those voices, whatever size they may be.

#DAM
#NDAM
#T1DLookLikeMe
#WDD
#WDD17

However you hashtag it, Diabetes Awareness Month is here again. And right behind it, a feeling of being overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of all the posts and blue circles and everything else that makes up November for those of us living with and affected by this disease.

Then, sometime after we get over feeling overwhelmed, we move into the feeling guilty phase, where we compare ourselves to those who seem to have all their DAM Diabetes Awareness Month shit together better than we do. Especially when it comes to advocacy.

So before this gets out of hand, let’s stop long enough to take a big breath…

I’m fond of saying this to people, and I’ll probably say it tonight when I speak in front of a group from our area. This might even come as a shock to you, but here it is:

The effects of advocacy are large…
The steps we take to practice advocacy are often very small.

Hey, I want to take on the world too, and I want to bring the diabetes awareness to the masses in ways that have never been imagined before. Will I? Not this week.

Instead, tonight, I’ll sit with my neighbor, a dietician at Johns Hopkins Hospital, in front of about 20 Lions Club members. I’ll tell them about what it’s like to have to think about every single piece of food you put in your mouth, every time you eat.

I like to call that advocacy with a little a. I won’t be presenting in front of hundreds at some symposium on another continent. I won’t be crossing the country to organize and lead a protest. Instead, I’ll be heading off to Golden Corral and sharing what I know, so the people in attendance can share my message with others.

It’s a small thing to do, this advocacy with a little a. But sharing our story with others is just as important as symposia and protests. And just as powerful.

Each of us, regardless of our education level or job status or social media profile have a story to tell. It’s our story, full of chapters that many others have written, but no one else has experienced quite the way we have. We are the authors of our own epic.

Our unique perspective on life with diabetes may be exactly what another person needs to hear. It may be the exact message they’ve been searching for. Without you sharing your story, they might not receive the message you are uniquely qualified to deliver.

So before you get overwhelmed, or heaven forbid, feel guilty about coming up short this November, remember:

It’s not a contest.

The effects of advocacy are huge.

The steps we take to practice advocacy are often very small.

Advocacy with a little a is powerful, no matter what the calendar says.