Moving goal posts

I feel the goal posts moving and it’s making me uncomfortable. 

It seems no matter what I do or where I go, I keep looking back to the past. To blindness. To vitreous bleeds. To cataracts. To DKA. 

Sickness is an incredibly grounding experience. It forces you to rethink your priorities and set new goals. 

For me, many of these goals were small almost tiny milestones. Just one more day. Getting through to the next hour. Enduring another sleepless night. The boredom and mind numbing feeling of being house bound and unable to navigate your way to places like the television or the radio. 

Arriving for my first ever consult with an ophthalmologist, I cut a sad and solitary figure. Weeks of unsuccessfully wishing to die had led me to that appointment. At that point I was uncertain if I would ever regain my sight. To be honest I don’t think I really cared. I had fallen so low and so far I had lost track of what was normal or what was real. All I saw were dark lines in my vision and dark shadows obscuring the future. 

As the weeks became months I began to dream of a better day. Consult after consult seemed to indicate that the impossible could be achieved. That through surgery and intensive LASER my vision loss may not be permanent.

 

I dared to dream. For the first time in a couple of years I HAD a dream. It was a tiny “light” but it was real and I ran with it...

 

Four months from that first consult I lay in a pre-operative ward awaiting a vitrectomy. Having seen so many things go wrong, I tried hard to keep my hopes in check. To take things a day at a time until hours later I emerged from surgery. 

After more months of waiting and two more surgeries I eventually emerged with “new” eyes.  
 

I COULD SEE…..and all I wanted to do was shout from the roof tops and sing. To get into my car and drive. To stand on the beach at sunset. To let the soaking rain wash over my body. To breathe in the fresh country air on a brisk winter’s morning. 
 

I was unemployed and barely alive but I could see and that was enough for me. I was blissfully happy and nothing could wipe the smile from my face. 
 

I literally emerged from that process without a worry in the world. I didn’t care what people thought of me. I didn’t care about the horrid state of the economy. I didn’t care that I had fallen years behind my peers in achieving career goals….heck I didn’t even care that I was old and single….
 

 

I could see

I could see

I could see 
 

Having said all of this I have lost “sight” of my new life. I gained my vision but lost my sight. 
 

I have lost the feeling of wonder at taking in a sunrise. I have forgotten the joy of having and being able to go to work. I have forgotten the pure exultation of walking in the rain and moved on from moments of connection with people that far out rank career progress…
 

 So the line has been drawn. 
 

I’m taking the time to remember. I’m taking an occasional day off to bask in the sunshine. I’m taking road trips just because I can. I’m forgetting my station in life and dead end job that I might appreciate the things I once passed by.
 

 

I am alive and it is good….

 

 I

Here I go again

Getting old is no fun. Getting old with complications from a chronic illness is miserable and doing that alone well...


I'm not really sure when it started but seemingly overnight, everyone is younger than me. They're achieving great things, living their dreams and there I remain, seemingly frozen in time.


When it comes to music I'm happy to be left behind. The young folk can have their rap and funk. They can beat box along to their synthesized tunes, I'm perfectly happy to enjoy some 80s classics. I joke about music tastes with some of my work mates as they snigger at my real music with real words. Music is my link to the past and a time where the world was seemingly at my feet and anything was possible..


Since high school I had dreams of finding the woman of my dreams, building a life and growing old together. To this point I remain alone. Hopeful but alone.


For too long now I have been putting off  some things in the hope that some poor soul would wander into my life. That was until this past weekend.


The first weekend of spring brought with it perfect weather. Having cunningly devised a rare weekend off, clear skies called me to get out and about. Tentatively, I got in to my car and headed for the hills.


It's time to do some things.


It's time to do the things I've been putting off. It's time to take that long car trip I dreamed of sharing with someone. It's time to book a holiday on my own terms. It's time to be me. Old, rusty and 80s child, me...


While the empty passenger seat still grates on me I'm making an effort to move on. The fairy tale may never eventuate. The perfect woman may remain locked away in my dreams.


Life is too short to wait around for perfect situations that may never occur. The sun is shining and I am alive. I'm winding the window down, cranking up some classic 80s and hitting the road.

Let's see how this story ends...

A Belgian, Australian and a Hoosier walk into a bar..

Life has a funny way of throwing up curve balls at inopportune times. 

          Over the past couple of years like everyone, I have faced my fair share. This particular event occurred on my most recent US holiday in the summer of 2012. 

Track back a little over nine months and I stood on the verge of my first ever overseas holiday Having overcome  blindness, DKA and near death I arrived in Kansas City to be greeted by the kindest and most incredible folk I could ever hope to meet, many of whom had travelled vast distances.  It was a rare chance for mutual online friends to catch up in real life and to use an Australian colloquialism, “chew the fat”. 

One such person resides in Mid Western America and having returned home, I resolved to drop by on my next visit. Booking well in advance I arranged my single spare weekend to fly out to Indianapolis and touch base. When the day finally came, like all responsible travelers I arrived at the airport hours in advance. A foreign airport in a foreign country en route to a city I had never visited…. 

So far so good. It’s perfectly normal to fly vast distances to meet strangers after all, right? 

Arriving at the crowded departure gate I took up the only available seat and contemplated the journey ahead. As I waited I struck up a conversation with a Belgian business man also en route to Indianapolis to close out a deal.
 

 

With an initial delay to the flight we headed off to eat some early dinner both anxious to arrive at our planned destination. It was then that one of those curve balls came “flying” by. (Pardon the pun).
 

 

Returning to the gate we found our delayed flight further delayed and as storms rolled across New York, we looked on as more and more flights on the departure board were cancelled. As the early afternoon became mid to late evening and it became apparent our still scheduled flight was not going to leave we scrambled for an alternate flight out. 

 

Taking our illegitimate place in the “Sky Miles” premium customer queue, we struck up conversation with a native Hoosier (person from Indianapolis) who was keen to return home from a European business trip. After a long wait in line we were told that Sunday would be our earliest chance to get a new flight. 

 

With my return flight scheduled for Sunday I quickly saw my dreams fading in front of my eyes. 
 

Enter Belgian business guy…. 

 

With a friend waiting to pick him up in Indy he managed to secure a seat on a flight to Ohio and somehow convince the attendant to provide seats for both myself and the Indy local.  At this point I was just about open to anything, so at nearly midnight I boarded an unscheduled flight to a strange city in the company of another international visitor, not knowing what lay ahead.

 

 

A little over two hours later we arrived at Columbus International airport in Ohio to be greeted by the Belgians friend in his brand new VW.  

 

So there I was, road-tripping hundreds of miles across state lines in the company of complete strangers to Indianapolis.  

 

A little after 4AM local time I arrived at a gas station in deserted Indiana and bid farewell to my foreign friends and waited. Following a series of early morning calls my friend Mike began his journey across state to pick me up. 

 

Here...

 

 

So what is the moral of this long and drawn out tale…. 

 

That sometimes life’s curve balls provide opportunities to achieve things beyond our wildest dreams. In wandering down strange and unexplored passages, we can uncover friends and experiences that last a life time.

 

It was only one weekend. It was only one flight and it was only a chance happening but I shall forever remember that weekend and the hospitality shown to me by Mike and his wonderful wife

 

 

Friends for life are worth traveling for. They are worth hurting for and they are worth sacrificing for. They have helped me through some of my greatest challenges and shaped the person that I am today. Though distance, time and place separate many of us thank you to all of my friends for being the amazing people that you are...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We interrupt our regular programming

In the vain of all sensational news flashes, this week I decided to interrupt all scheduled broadcasting and make a couple of out of character decisions.

I take change seriously and I despise stagnation. Daily life and routine seems only to breed more of the same in my life. Work, TV, sleep, work....on and on ad infinitum punctuated by the occassional life changing event in the company of inspirational folk.

It's easy to let life pass by and in the process miss opportunities for the sake of comfort and convenience. So often it is a case of "better the devil you know". Inertia is a powerful force and so often I can feel it strangling the life out of my bones.

While it is not possible to re-invent the wheel, this week I made some attempts at making mine more aero-dynamic. I long for more spontaneity, for more moments of insanity and acts of random stupidity. I want to be random in the true sense of the word.

So what's with the vaguaries?

Details at this pont are sketchy and it is not yet possible to guage whether my "decisions" will bear any fruit but the line has been drawn. From this point, normal is out the door. I will continue to sing loudly and out of tune to classic 80s tracks, I will get up and go to work in the morning, the sun will rise in the East but it will rise on a different me.

I will break the mould and I wll be unpredictable..

Those were our young years

I keep returning to my high school graduation day and dreaming. It may be the romance of a past era, it might be the words of an 80s track reverberating but no matter what it is, the dream is there...

I remember the mixed feelings of regret and excitement all playing together in some kind of weird symphony....the kind you'd get when an orchestra backs Guns N' Roses.

I want the feeling back that I'm on the verge of a new and exciting adventure. The dream that life could take me anywhere and the hope of developing a new identity.

Strange to say, two decades out of high school I still long to be my own person. It seems that life has just happened to me for so long and I have not been pro-active in making things happen.

Things need to change. Radically

I have never been a fan of change for change sake but it seems there is too much more to be experienced than lives inside my tiny bubble.

Herein lies the problem.

I have a mild work addiction.

In my attempt to rebuilt my life I have spent nearly every waking moment either at work or thinking about getting back there. I'm all for being fiscally responsible but the process is grinding me down and there are moments when I feel I could explode unless something changes.

I like the structure that a busy work life brings. I like planning for holidays way down the track to give me something to look forward to. In fact, I have already enjoyed two of such holidays, one of which I wrote about here. Walking the streets of America and sharing coffee and diet coke with friends are experiences I shall never forget. What I long for is more of that excitement and spontaneity amongst the daily grind.

The mountain top moments must remain but the valleys must be raised.

Onward and upward....

A place to call my own

I don’t know where it all began but I continue searching for a place to call my own. A place where I am known and understood and I am me in all of my imperfections.. 

I need a “Cheers” theme song playing here..

Throughout the busy days at work and as I lay myself down to sleep I hear the chorus repeating softly in my mind….

 

”You want to be where you can see,

Our troubles are all the same;

You want to be where everybody knows your name. “

 

For as long as I can remember insecurity and self doubt have been my constant companions. I hear their unwelcome footsteps creeping behind me at the most inopportune moments. In the middle of conversation or on the way to meet up with friends, I hear them whisper in my ear. I see my failings and shortcomings amplified as never before and immediately feel out of place and awkward.

 

Expectations and responsibilities terrify me. No matter how many times I perform a task, I feel that I’m building myself up for a fall; for the unavoidable moment when I am expected to do it and fail. These doubts have been the building blocks of my personal and professional life and they are impossible to shake

 

I sit in rooms full of people and drift off into another world. I see groups of folks who seem to understand their place and are comfortable with it. People getting on with their lives and making sense of the madness; overcoming adversity

to make a new life and then left to confront the reality that is being me. 

 

          For a long time I’ve secretly hoped someone would appear out of nowhere with the answer. I am prone to wandering glances and hopeful looks, waiting for that person. As time goes by however, I have learned to live with the uncertainty. I am what I am and there is a certain amount of solace in continuing with the status quo.

 

So many unresolved questions remain. And here they shall play out….

 

The Struggle

Sometimes the words seem to come at 100 miles an hour at others they are a dribble, a real strive in fact.

When I originally began blogging in October I had so much on my mind...just so much. It wasn’t the normal kind of lifestyle “stuff”, I’m talking more in terms of “baggage” or unprocessed mess in my mind. So much of it was diabetes related. It related to complications that have and still do rack my body, in addition to the added mental stress of a manually operated pancreas. I arrived in the DOC a complete package of …..of…...need.

I understand that some folk have an almost superhuman ability to overcome adversity, whose sense of optimism (or whatever else) sees them push through at any cost. I am unfortunately not one of those people. For me things tend to move slowly. Unlike the words of a blog post which can sometimes roll of the mind, I am very slow at making headway into long standing and difficult issues. In truth sometimes it is hard to see the forest for the trees and progress is very hard to notice.
Reflecting on a whirlwind six months I am happy to announce that I can see some movement. It is patchy, inconsistent and unpredictable but there is some movement. The emotional dark clouds of diabetes that brought me on line have shown some signs of dissipating but I am all to aware that the wounded dog is often more dangerous than the healthy one. I remain cautious and guarded...uncertain I guess

I am amazed at how so many wonderful people in the DOC have accepted me. In stark contrast to my home environment, I am at my most normal being who I am here...diabetic. I appreciate that the illness is not meant to be definitive but I lived through a long period of denial and found that so much more destructive. The feeling of belonging and connection is, in all honesty, irreplaceable. It is the cool sea breeze after a hot summers day and the last quarter come from behind win from my favourite sports team.

I have posted before about how complications skew my perspective. I feel like I let the team down in a sense by having so many things wrong. I can run great BGs yet the issues remain, worse still I can have body and BG issues running concurrently. Growing up I was always one of the “good” kids in class, I would never have dreamed that by my mid thirties my body would be such a mess BUT those are the facts, now I am trying to move beyond them. I am placing my marker flag down and taking things one yard at a time….sometimes the whole ten is just too far ahead.

For now I am celebrating the great people of the DOC. I am accepting the inconsistencies of diabetes and struggling along with my less than perfect body. I am learning to take my eyes off the things I cannot change and just enjoy what remains, great people, amazing stories and a healthy serving of inspiration.

The struggle goes on but now it is not alone. It is struggle with purpose...struggle to get through to another day to read another story. To discover how my friends are faring, to read of their victories with diabetes and of their struggles, to feel inspired, to feel the heartbreak but most of all to feel the connection.