start of summer….

 

 

I had to include a photo of my babies……it’s been a while.

Queens University of Charlotte, MFA!

Well, here is my big news: I’m starting an MFA in creative writing program at Queens University in about two weeks! Yikes! I’m so excited. It’s a low-residency program in Charlotte, NC with a great faculty. I applied past the deadline and they accepted me and in two weeks I’ll pack my bags and drive to Charlotte for a week of reading, writing and work-shopping. I’ve never been away from my boys for this long and I have about 30 books I need to be reading and I need to get my writing ready to be work-shopped and I am thrilled and overwhelmed. This is a dream come true! I am abandoning my MAT in English program which was a means to an end so that I can follow my passion. I have lusted after an MFA for years but told myself it was too late, too expensive, too everything and so I put my dreams in the closet.

Last week, in the middle of a bad cold and after spending the day in bed while my children watched tv, I knew I couldn’t return to my MAT program. I knew it wasn’t too late or too expensive for me to open the door to my dream and let them out of the closet…..Apparently I am a late bloomer and while I’m sure to be one of the older students in the program, I know that it doesn’t matter because I’m only now starting to realize that my life is constantly evolving and changing shape. I’ve given the last seven years of my life to my children and now it’s time to follow my dream. It’s not too late after all.

(And I have a husband who supports this dream…how great is that!?!)

Fatty Acids and risks of type 1 diabetes

Somehow I just got the winter 2008 issue of Countdown, (not sure why it was late), and I saw an interesting newsbrief that says, “Children at risk for type 1 diabetes may gain some protection from developing the disease by increasing omega-3 fatty acids in their diet, according to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.” The newsbrief explains that Omega-3 fatty acids are “abundant” in certain fish, dark green veggies, canola and sunflower oils.

Hmmmm….I’ve had type 1 diabetes for 23 years and am the mother to 2 boys, ages 4&6. My boys are not fans of fish but they do eat “trees” (broccoli), so this is wonderful news! Who knew there were ways to fight this disease, and that our tools in battle could be so simple like tuna and broccoli! I think this is very exciting and so if anyone has any kid-friendly tuna recipes, send them on over!

Apologies

How many times over the last 23 years have I gotten low with strangers? Last week I went to my grammar class at 5:45pm. The class is 3 hours and so I gave a small shot and ate a quick dinner around 5:15pm, much earlier than normal because I didn’t really have another choice. My normal routine is to feed the kids’ dinner and then Dale and I eat around 7pm every night. I rushed out the door to school and we sat and listened to the professor for over an hour. I had sugar in my bag, Skittles and grapes in case I got low and as the class went on, I started to feel funny. It was difficult to follow the lecture and I could slowly feel myself slipping away but I didn’t want to pull out my One Touch, it was the first night of class and I was sitting in the front row! So I waited, and hoped the professor would call for a break.

Finally, at 7pm, our professor said we could take a break and I stood up to find the bathroom. I followed another student I knew and she tried to talk to me and I couldn’t say anything, I just followed her and kept quiet. When she went into the stall, I tested my blood sugar and was 50! Ugh. I had to hurry back to the classroom to dig out my candy and in the meantime, my classmates started talking to me and I tried to follow what they were saying and come up with intelligible answers but I knew I wasn’t making any sense at all. I was slow to come back and by the time I did, the professor was ready to resume the lecture and by then it was too late to tap my classmates on the back and say, “Hey, by the way, sorry if I was being weird just now, I’m diabetic and my blood sugar was low.” I didn’t say anything; I just let it go and hoped they didn’t think I was weird.

On my way home I wondered how many times I’d been in this situation. I wondered how many people I’d met along the way who had caught me in a bad moment. I knew it shouldn’t matter what other people thought of me, especially strangers who I would never see again (I dropped that class!) but the part that bothered me the most was that I cared at all, that I felt like I needed to apologize for my behavior, that the way I acted, wasn’t me.

There is a photo of me and Dale with some friends on the beach before we were married.  It was a cold fall day and we were wearing jackets and hats and in the picture, I am wearing sunglasses. Dale hates the picture because he remembers that day. “That was the day you were low,” he said the last time I was flipping through the album. It’s a beautiful photo, the beach stretches out behind us at low tide and the sky is a gray blue with wispy white clouds. Dale tells me he remembers how my eyes looked that day; my pupils were big and distant as if I wasn’t really there. He’s not asking me to apologize but I feel like telling him, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, it wasn’t me.”

But if it wasn’t me, who was it, and where was I?