It's Just Maintenance!

I once had a friend who became one of my heroes when she systematically dirtied all her dishes, cups and glasses, pots and pans, silverware and cooking utensils, took one look at the mess she had made, and then boxed it all up and lugged it to the curb. I would never do something like that myself, you understand. I can't afford it, for one thing. But I'd get tired of living with it all long before I was through the process. Still, it's the kind of thing we might dream of doing when we're tired of being "good."

The thing is, from the time I was eleven until I moved out when I was eighteen, I washed every dirty dish in our house for a family of seven after every evening meal and every Sunday after church, when we often had company. I washed and my younger sister dried. That's upwards of 2,500 meals worth of dishes. We got good at it. Little did I realize that it was preparing me for a lifetime of things you "have to" do.

Washing the dishes, cleaning the bathroom, vacuuming the rugs, sweeping off the porch, taking out the garbage, cutting the grass, buying the groceries, cooking the meals, washing the car, checking the tires, doing the laundry. (Stop me when I've made my point because you know I've only just gotten started.)

We all know you don't actually have to do any of this, right? If you can afford it, you can get somebody else to do at least some of it for you -- though certainly not all. And some people (as we can tell by looking around) simply don't bother with any of it. In which case, of course, they live in dirty sweat pants, they often run out of gas, and critters show up in the weeds and the leftover food. Which can be inconvenient, uncomfortable, and/or dangerous from time to time.

So most of us have a whole list of things we do that we feel stuck with. It's not the end of the world. They just need to get done. And we're grown-ups, so we do them.

I like food in my fridge, gas in my car, my bills paid, and my favorite jeans clean. And in the end, though I may sometimes feel crabby about "having to" do one thing or another, once I decide to do it, few tasks take a long, long time and all of them get finished at some point.

Managing my diabetes is no different. If I check my glucose, get my blood work done, see my doctor regularly, make exercise a habit, eat right, take my meds like I'm supposed to, drink plenty of water, get enough sleep, and have some fun once in a while, my body will take as good a care of me as I take of it. It's just maintenance!