Growing Pains

We all have to go through growing pains. It’s just a part of life that we can’t escape. Most of the time we can learn from them and move on. Then there are the other times when they haunt the back of your mind and you can’t move past them even when you try your hardest. I’ve experience many growing pains, it’s probably why I resent change so much, it’s the sheer fact that with change comes growth whether we like it or not. When we were younger it was a lot simpler, your mom told you not to touch the hot stove and you when you didn’t listen, you burned your hand, learned your lesson and grew from it. When you’re older it’s not always that easy, your mistakes can’t be fixed by mom’s kiss, instead we have to hold our heads up, and take the mature route, even when it’s the hardest thing to do.

When I became a diabetic I had a lot of growing pains. I had to learn the hard way that no matter how much I like to have control over everything, there would always be one aspect of my life that I couldn’t control no matter how hard I tried. It was a frustrating battle that I often lost and had to move past. It was a daily reminder that no matter how hard I tried, I had no chance.

Over time, diabetes has taught me to let the little things go. The small things are the hardest things for me to let go. They are the things that remind me that I’m not perfect, and there is no way to achieve perfection even when I try my hardest. I was frustrated all of the time and it just wasn’t the way to handle my disease or live my life. I had to start looking at the brighter side of things and not dwell on that one bad number, or my missed bolus, or whatever I did wrong that day. In most cases I was able to see that I had more positives than negatives and it started to make me look at my disease differently. I could stop resenting it, stop pretending I could control, I was able to just live my life with it.

Growing pains are hard, and frustrating, and sometimes have to be relearned. But they are apart of life and I just have to look them in the face and accept them. At the end of the day all that matters is I’ve learned a little life nugget. Something to store and reflect on when needed. I won’t ever be perfect, I am flawed, and I can own that, but that’s life I can accept it for what it is, or choose to grow from it and move on. And at the end of the day growth always wins.