Looking back at blog posts I have been working on #openAPS in one capacity or another for the last two years. Just double checked it, I placed my first Adafruit order for xDrip and OpenAPS parts on May 11, 2015… that puts us at over two years. What has held me up this long? Well there was a lot of life stuff for sure… moving to DC, living at home, being seriously sick with diabetes fall out, moving to Seattle, changing careers, 6 month intensive software development program, new job, freelancing, another new job, god knows how much emotional turmoil, therapists, new anxiety drugs, my grandmother passing away, one of our family dogs passing away, gender feels, relationship feels… it’s been a jam packed two years, but I can’t help but think how different it could have been if I had had balanced BG numbers through that time… but I just wasn’t ready. Honestly I’m barely ready now, I was not prepared for the emotional turmoil accompanying starting openAPS – it’s like I don’t feel like I deserve these numbers, I’m waiting for the other foot to drop, for it to be taken away, for it not to work, to go back to struggling… that maybe this would ever not be a limit, or a worry or whatever… it’s like just being in constant shock. I’m just sort of floating. I have so many things that I should be doing right now, but instead I’m just here, existing, watching the terminal with my openAPS logs and my nightscout dashboard in disbelief. I was not expecting all these feelings. I’m glad it’s a busy weekend with lots of friends, I’m not sure how I would be dealing otherwise. Catching the lows has eliminated the rebounds and kept me so much more in range I can’t even believe it. disbelief… that pretty much covers it.
Tag: feelings
So the xDrip progress has not met my millennial need for instant gratification… I’m sure I’ll power through the project itself, but the parts are not all “amazon-primable” so I’m waiting for the whole kit to be here, so I can get started. I took some time away this past weekend to get centered and focus on my health from the inside out — it was an amazing last minute decision. Rather than just going camping, I found this amazing yoga retreat, never mind the fact that I realized after signing up that I haven’t consistently done yoga in at least two years, and even then, maybe longer depending on what you count as a “consistent” practice… but it was amazing, I jumped in with two feet, accepting and being excited by vegan/vegetarian food, getting a massage, and letting my science mind accept the healing of reiki with out a scientifically defendible solution… and I feel ridicuoulsly amazing, so I guess that’s the only thing that matters. The thing that this weekend really proved to me is that I am stronger than I thought I was — and my ability to connect with people is not in my mind, when I am willing and choose to devote the energy I am capable of connecting with new people, seems like a blinding glimpse of the obvious, but there it is… love and light, and hope, xo
I feel like I’m slipping, but only because I’m trying to ratchet up from a crawl to a run, well maybe from a walk to a brisk walk, but still… it leaves me with the options to slow down or push through, my answer my whole life would have been to push through, but then the last few years — getting sober, learning to ask for and accept help, diabetes (crash, boom!), — have taught me to slow down to meet present challenges, but now I’m starting to feel the itch… the “fuck it, just run” itch… and I’m more and more inclined to listen to that voice, it feels like I’m risking a relapse in every sense of the word, but I can’t help but also feel that staying still is keeping me sick… who the fuck knows, at the end of the day it’s my life… I’ll keep you posted.