ForeverWandering.com

So bear with me as I try to put my thoughts in the past few days into words, but it isn’t always easy.

On this day, May 22, 1990, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. I am 32, and have lived 21 of those with diabetes.

While I would never wish diabetes on anyone else, I celebrate this day. I’m a person who doesn’t like it (I don’t get angry, just don’t like it) when someone says “I wish you never had to go through that” or “I wish I could take it away from you.” My perspective on diabetes is that…I’ve been blessed with it.

Other than a wonderful addiction to Diet Mountain Dew (best drink on Earth), many things in my life are direct result of having diabetes…my wife , kids, confidence, sense of “wandering with a purpose,” hundreds of friendships with others with diabetes, a career where I get to work and play with both a part of the job description, a shared bond of diabetes with my sister – and did I mention the introduction to the wonderful beverage of Diet Mt. Dew? I don’t believe in coincidence, and as a Christian, I don’t think that God gives anything that we cannot handle. Diabetes is something that I have handled, and continue to handle, and use as a gift. This doesn’t mean I don’t have my bad days…my “burnout” days. But those days are outnumbered 100 to 1 by the good days. Not too bad to me when I imagine the unhealthy person I could have been without diabetes, or life without Sarah (who I don’t believe I would have met without diabetes) and, as a result, Josiah and Susan. I wouldn’t trade those things away.

So I’m looking forward to another 21 years…and much more. In celebration, I plan on having…Diet Mt. Dew. Maybe even a couple. Hey, why change a good thing?

Another camp ending has come and gone, and even though the season doesn’t officially end until next weekend with the end of two programs I am in one of my conflicted bittersweet moods.

This summer has been one of the toughest of both my personal and professional lives. It has been composed of being away from my wife and kids for a month, the death of a good friend from camp, and a couple of other things that I’d rather not mention here yet. Add a heaping of self-doubt and I’ve got myself a…difficult summer.

But that’s not to say that the season didn’t have its good points. As always, the time I got to spend with campers and staff was awesome. It was also one of the best summers I’ve had as far as quality and dedication of staff.

I compare this summer to a really good movie. Like the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It is a great series filled with joy, heartache, laughter, sadness, action, and rest. And while it seems that, at times, that you never want it to end there are times that you wish it could be over. Inevitably, however, no matter what you wish for — it will end. It is a sad thing for the end to come but you find solace in the fact that it was a happy ending.

That is where I am now. The season is coming to an end and there is nothing I can do to change that. As with a couple of other things connected to that — I am a conflicted man (and probably will be for the near future). I am watching the ship sail out and wondering what adventures await me as I stand on shore. I know they shall be grand adventures, but I sometimes wonder what the people on that ship will experience.

So the current adventure is over. After watching the ship sail into the west and the sunset, I find myself wiping away the tears of sadness, turning around and walking to the new sunrise that I know will be approaching after a while. It just means a bit of traveling and wandering through the nighttime.

ad astra per aspera — “a rough road leads to the stars”
“not all who wander are lost” — J.R.R Tolkien