In my youth…

 

but you wondered, didn’t you?

 

I watched Piers Morgan last night on CNN covering the death of Elizabeth Taylor. Yes, she was gorgeous. Yes, she was an icon. Yes, she had 8 husbands, was bold and bawdy and may well be our last “movie star.”

What I also noticed, beside the talkingcelebrity tributes, was at each commercial break they showed tweets from Elizabeth’s celebrity friends memorializing her. 

Elton John, James Earl Jones, Liza Minelli, Angela Lansbury, Dick Cavett, Larry King, Kirstie Alley, Michael Caine, Steve Martin. They were all tweeting what you might call tiny little obituaries. Really, what you’d want your friends to say about you when you die. Like, “She taught me a lot about suffering and joy.” “She had a wicked sense of humor I loved.” “She was passionate about everything and did so much good for the world.”

It’s long been a life-coach exercise to have people write their own obituary to think what they’d like to be remembered for, and then create that life. Somehow seeing it as 140 or less word tweets makes it seem so much more doable. 

So I’m thinking maybe we should all write a few tweets about ourselves that we’d like people to use after we’re gone – and then go about creating that life now. 

When I die I’d like people to tweet (of course I realize by then tweeting will have been replaced by something else, but I’ll use it for now):

“She made me think about my life and helped me make it better. And god she was funny!!!.”

Your turn. 

Katie Decker shares her wisdom 

 

Transforming management through recreation

 

 I just listened to a great podcast on “Transforming Diabetes” where type 1 patient and health counselor Katie Decker has some great stuff to say. 

Mature beyond her years, Katie’s been living with diabetes and celiac disease for 7 years. She’s made several changes in her life since her diagnosis: she went back to school for health counseling, while still working as an architect, she moved from Los Angeles to Portland, she has grown closer to her family, and diabetes has changed her, her values and how she lives. 

Katie is calm, clear, centered and shares her thoughts about living with diabetes from a productive, constructive, energizing place; a place where we also have a responsibility to strive for our best, maintain balance and ask for support.  

Katie also made me aware of an intriguing organization,InsulinDependence (ID), that is attempting to revolutionize diabetes management by building self-confidence and adaptive management strategies in young people through adventure travel and recreation. The organization also offers leadership training, community and more. ID has an interesting history, an outgrowth of  an experiential diabetes education expedition Peter Nerothin took type 1 youths on in the mountains of Peru in 2005.  

I also like Katie’s idea that we all live on what she calls “primary” and “secondary foods.” Primary foods are those that nourish our spirit like: friends, family, mindfulness, work and hobbies we love. For Katie it’s her love of art. Secondary foods are those we put on our plate. What’s key is when our primary foods aren’t nourishing us we tend to make poor choices in our secondary foods. No doubt in my book.

Tune in to Katie’s interview. So much good information from this young old soul.

My love story at 48 years old

A love story that gets better with time

When I got engaged at the ripe old age of 47 in the year 2000, I said to my husband-to-be, who knew I had diabetes but more in the figurative sense than actually seeing it close-up and on the ground, “If you want to rethink this, I won’t hold it against you. I don’t know what’s in store for my future and I would never want to be a burden to you.” 

He wrapped his arms around me, just as I’d hoped, and said, “You’re with me now and I’m with you and we will do this together.” 

And we have. He’s my partner in life and in my diabetes and at times in my work. He’s prouder of me than anyone has a right to be and I don’t know where I’d be without him. 

I’m reminded of that early moment in our history because in the current American Diabetes Association’s Forecast magazine, March 2011, the reflection column brought it all back. “A Life Together” expresses very much the same sentiments of a husband who married a woman with type 1 diabetes and took it on. And that was back in 1951. He’s now 80 and they’ve been married 57 years. She is blessedly complication-free, and yes she’s worked at it, and he says “our love is far stronger today than it was when we got married.”

Remember, when they got married meters didn’t exist, which came out in the early 1980’s, no insulin pumps, and a guaranteed uncertain future.

But here’s to love! I found myself tearing up reading the article and want to thank the author, Myron Schultz, for drawing such a beautifully woven and warm wrap around us all while baring his soul. May a thousand mitzvahs land on your doorstep Myron.