Diabetes,

You showed up when I was seven. I don't remember being scared. I remember walking around that hospital telling the other kids it was going to be okay, and giving my teddy bear to a girl who was crying. I told my aunt I was going to help cure you someday. I meant it.

A year later I told my endocrinologist that one day I'd check my glucose without pricking my finger. She laughed in my face. In fairness, I hated finger pricks so much I skipped as many as I could get away with. (Sorry, Mom.)

You didn't just happen to me. You happened to my mom, who checked on me through the night for years and gave up more sleep than I'll be able to pay back. And to my dad, who somehow made you the least interesting thing at the dinner table. It took me a long time to realize he did that on purpose, and that it was exactly what I needed.

I'll be honest about the middle part. In high school and college I was embarrassed of you. I didn't accept you; I just tried to make you invisible. It didn't work. Mostly it made me tired.

You've taken real things from me. Energy. Time. I'm not going to pretend that's fine.

But at twenty-three, something shifted. I stopped hiding you and started paying attention: to my body, to my levels, to how good I feel when things are steady. I found Pilates, and it changed how I feel in my own body. I found people online who get it before I finish the sentence. The kid who sang at a diabetes walk grew up to help run a group for young adults with type 1. I found a boyfriend who hands me juice before I ask and doesn't make it weird.

You've given me stories, too. Like the time I was told an insulin pump was waterproof and found out, in the water, that it was not. Or every trip I've packed for with great intentions and not enough backup supplies, which ends with me in a pharmacy spelling out exactly what I need, sometimes in a language I barely speak.

And now I check my glucose right on my phone with Dexcom G7. Eight-year-old me would like a word with that doctor.

Here's what surprised me: living with you made the other hard things in life feel smaller. I've done hard things before breakfast for twenty-two years. A challenge doesn't scare me much.

If I could give you back tomorrow, I would. I'd just keep what you taught me, and the version of me who is resilient and loves who she is.

That eight-year-old in the doctor's office wasn't naive. She was just early.

Grace