Make two lists.

The first: All the people you don’t want to talk to.

It should include, but not be limited to:

• the bro whose grandma has had diabetes foreverrrrr and she’s like, fine dude
• anyone using the combination of “journey”, “healing” or “embrace” in a single sentence
• the colleague prepping for vacation by sharing photos across social media of her #fitlife
• the LinkedIn contact who wants to get drinks and catch up for real
• Gwyneth Paltrow

The second: All the people you do.

I started this blog because I thought it’d be funny. Not autoimmune disease necessarily, but my perspective on it. At the time, I had one condition (grave’s) and a few weeks of dealing with it by name. I thought if I could figure out the parts to make light of, I would rise above the mediocrity of its existing literature and become its sardonic, witty authority. This was an inaccurate assumption.

Two years shy of that original diagnosis and I have two others to add – Type 1 diabetes and celiac. I’ll freely admit the celiac bit is almost funny, if only because I’ve spent so much time scowling at consumers of the gluten-free lifestyle. In the case of diabetes, the challenge of my wannabe humor becomes quite clear.

I’m uncomfortable.

It doesn’t feel funny, or fine. It doesn’t feel tragic, or fatal or profound. It feels tiring and disappointing and ongoing. It is a chronic narrative with occasional crises. It feels empty and boring and viceless. I feel empty, and boring and viceless. My day revolves around a little meter and the numbers it sends to the screen.

Sometimes I pretend it doesn’t exist. Occasionally it is all I can think about.

It is so much, and also so little, at the same time.