Seeker, there is no path. The path is formed by walking.....Antonio Machado.....

Hello All: My name is Judith. I'm 60 years old; a newbie to diabetes (type 2) and also to chat rooms, forums and online communities. My path has been: dancer--choreographer & teacher--costume designer--writer for theater--poet--textile artist--jewelry maker--50 years since donning that first pair of tights. Also gardener and stray-cat-haven-provider and mom of a son still born at 8 months (1972) and an amazingly Alive daughter (1973) and mom-in-law of her equally amazing partner and gramma of their endlessly delightful 3 year old and astonishingly I guess in this day and age quite profoundly coupled with the same soulmate since 1979. Whew! Also Aunt of two Very Most Precious and Brilliant and Loving nieces!

I grew up in Minnesota & value all I learned coming of age in a place where Mother Nature tries to kill you at least once a year (as Garrison Keiller says); joined my beloved sister and her dance company in Portland in 1976 where I was only going to stay for 2 years and here I still am. I have an equally beloved big brother in Santa Cruz where I like to visit a couple times a year. My 87 year old mother is a fragile-now "tough old broad" of Swedish heritage. I was close to my dad who died in 1989, probably of diabetes complications though it wasn't talked about.

I was diagnosed last winter while still sorting out emotionally just what it meant to have my female core removed surgically, including all the wild hormonal swings that go with surgically-induced menopause. An emotionally messy time I have been in and it continues, I'm afraid.

I am having trouble melding the rigidities of diabetes control with my creative process which is an equally demanding and unruly mistress. I call my glucose meter The Leech. Just last week I ripped it out of its case, threw it against the wall and then in the garbage. Such a tough little sucker, though. It's back online and ruling my life as before. I do appreciate that for many of us it is a miraculous technology, but for me it is still new and intrusive and it galls me--especially as a dancer who has lived deeply in her body since age 7-- to have a nasty little machine telling me what to do with my life.

I wish you all well!.....