More than diabetes

I started this blog in 2013. I was 15 years old and I had so much to write about, I would write the most pointless things at 1am, and talk about every single little detail that entailed my life with Type 1 Diabetes, as the years have gone on I've stopped blogging so much, and I have ended up being a sporadic blogger! I had determination to get my blog into something big and something that has recognition in the world of diabetes, and I'm proud of it because it has helped me raise awareness and it has gained recognition and that was good enough for me...and I feel like I got my blog to a point where I am comfortable to leave it weeks without blogging because there is always people there to receive my first posts after abandoning my blog for a while. That is because of the motivation I had in the beginning...I built it up to what it is now, and I'm happy with it. So, I won't keep apologising for being an occasional blogger, it's the place I come to at 1am when I have lots of thoughts whirring around my head, or when I have something to rant about, but I also have other thoughts that aren't related to diabetes. I have a life that is not consumed by diabetes and I am more than a person with Type 1 Diabetes and I think my blog really represents that fact!

I am 18 years old, I have finished school and I am, at times, a very indecisive person but there are moments when I will make a decision and stick to it, and there are times when I know what I want and I'll be stubborn about it. The decision not to go to University was one of those times. I had a moment and I knew I had my mind made up, I didn't want to go...and I was always in two minds about it from the moment I had filled out my UCAS application. I'm quite a confident person I would say, but it's taken me a long time to get to a point where I'm like that...when I was younger I would never ever speak my mind or say something that I thought had to be said, I hated confrontation! and I still do. However my stance on it now is that if I feel like I should say something I will, I do my best not to allow myself to let people walk all over me. Although, working in a supermarket means that side of me has to stay put because I can't exactly challenge some of the general public on their inappropriate and rude attitude. I say all this, but there is a side of me that's shy, and I have quite an anxious mind so sometimes, I don't do the things I think I can do or have to do, like talk to someone about something e.g at work, because I get nervous. And that's just what I'm like!

My family are everything. My mum especially is my world and I don't think it's possible to love her any more than I do. I am so grateful to have the parents and the family that I do, we are all very close and I really enjoy spending time with them. All my friends went to University, and like any other child/teenager, I went through many groups of friends and had and fell out with many people...but after school has finished, I only really properly stay in contact with two of my closest friends, and I'm okay with that, plus I've made friends outside of school and getting to know new people at work is cool. I enjoy listening to music, I listen to most things apart from rap, RnB, House, Dubstep etc. I don't like any of that kind of music. I often look on YouTube to see if I can discover any new songs that I might like, but it can't be any old song, I find that I really look at lyrics, I like songs that have meaning.

I am far more creative than I am academic. I would much rather draw a picture than do maths. I used to love it when the teacher in Primary School said we had to colour things in, whereas a lot of my peers would get grumpy about it and protest and state how much they hate colouring in, and this attitude continued into secondary school even though having to colour things in became a very rare occurrence. I have a tattoo on my arm of a Hummingbird, I've always wanted a tattoo and I'm so glad that I actually have one because I love it and I'm even more glad that it has meaning behind it. I find a lot of joy in looking at the sky, I am in awe of it every time there are beautiful colours or wispy clouds and I almost always have to get my phone out and post a picture of it even though a camera can never do it justice. Nature is a wonderful thing, and trees are another thing I like to look at. Ironically though, I am really afraid of wasps and so although summer comes with beautiful weather, the wasps are enough to keep me inside the whole day. No wonder I have low vitamin D levels!

I'm the kind of person that can accidentally come across as a bit rude. I feel like sometimes my personality doesn't know how to handle certain tones of voice from people, or something like that, I can't explain it. But I know this is a bit of self-proclamation but I am actually a nice person! and I'm not saying it in a sarcastic way, and I hope I'm not deluded but I think I'm kind and that's something that I pride myself in. I will only ever purposely be rude/abrupt to someone if I feel like it's necessary but even then I feel guilty, working in a supermarket and going to school has taught me that there are people out there who are rude because they have nothing else better to do and have a bad attitude, or because they think it's "cool". I often kept my distance from the "popular" kids in primary school because they were the kind of people that had "private chats" about things where really it was just an opportunity to be cruel about someone. But I would say that there is such a thing as being too nice, and to be too nice I think is to let people in this world walk all over you. Never let that be a thing.

I went on a bit of a ramble there, but the point of all that is that yes, I live with Type 1 Diabetes and people say to me "Why haven't you blogged in so long?" one of the main reasons is because I run out of things to say...yeah, I run out of things to say about a disease that demands so much attention and co-operation from the person living with it...but it's true- and do you know why that is? because it is not my whole life. My Type 1 Diabetes is a part of me, and yeah I could probably sit and talk about it for a long time but sometimes I don't want to, and I could also sit and talk about myself and who I am for a long time like I have just done. But I've run out of things to say about myself!

So here I am, telling you all about me instead of all about my diabetes, and this isn't aimed at anthing specific but you get to see a bit of my personality, and maybe understanding my personality is a good thing actually because then maybe you can understand my blog, and my sporadic posts!

-Ellie