A long, long time ago I started working on my "autobiography," which was an idea steeped in vanity because, let's face it, I haven't done much of anything with my life and I certainly hadn't done anything with my life when I started writing it. The idea was to call it the True Confessions of a Middle Aged 20-something- reflections on a life with diabetes, and maybe get it published so that kids who were diagnosed with diabetes, or maybe their parents, could see that living with this disease is do-able. Not necessarily always easy, never fun, but do-able. (And yes, in my mid twenties I felt middle aged...now I'm middle aged and I feel like I'm sixteen half the time. Woot.)
I think the blog is working better, obviously. For one thing, publishing a book is a pain in the ass. It costs money if you do it on your own (money that most people who self-publish fail to recoup, in my experience) and getting someone else to do it takes more time than I have. Secondly, my life is a work in progress. When I started the book version of this *NSync was still recording new music and the Twin Towers were still standing in New York City. My husband and I only had one dog. I wasn't using an insulin pump and CGM wasn't even something I'd heard of. Since that time New Kids on the Block has reunited and Seal Team 6 took care of the evil minded nutcase that brought the towers down. We now have three dogs, I've been on the pump for almost ten years, and CGM is something I don't think I could live without. A lot has happened during this time. And a lot continues to happen...
The Phantom Tollbooth- read it, see it. Yes, in that order.
Even with the passage of time, the book that almost was sits in the back of my memory. There was some good material there. I started with picking my mom's brain, going through old year books, trying to remember the things that happened when I was a kid. What school was like, how it felt to be the "diabetes girl," how things weren't that different in the grand scheme of things. I only stopped working on it because I had hit a wall- i.e., I'd hit present day and there wasn't much else to say except, "Yeah, and I'm still here, so...that's good." It was kind of done, and yet it felt like it wasn't finished because I wasn't finished.
Since I started that book my perception has changed on a lot of things. When I was a kid the thought of using a pump- sticking needle in my stomach- was horrifying. I fought my doctor on that subject for years and years. Truthfully, I swore there was no way I was ever going to do it. Well, look at me now. Perception is a fact of life. How you look at things is as important as what you're looking at. Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. That's as true now as it was when it was spoken a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away by a very wise dead guy.
That's right; it was this guy in a movie studio back in 1983.
I think this blog is fluid where a book would be static. And static isn't a bad thing- do you want to go back to your beat up copy of Pride and Prejudice someday and find Lizzie has run off with Bingley? Of course you don't. But since how I've been looking at my life with diabetes has changed so much over the years, I'm glad there isn't a book that details in black and white everything I was thinking when I was twenty two. I was naïve back then, and not nearly as sardonic or witty. And, if I may allow myself a little toot-you-own-horn moment, not nearly as talented at writing as I am now. At least now I think I've found my voice.
But the biggest reason I think the blog is more of a success is that I know I'm reaching more people with it than I would if I were to just write a book and try to publish it. It's out there...tagged with search terms and stored on Google's blogosphere, waiting to be discovered by someone who might need to hear what I'm saying. And that in and of itself I count as a win to me. Am I really reaching lot of people? No. I can see my stats and each post usually gets about 20 hits, more or less. But the potential is there. And seeing as how a book would have to come to an end at some point much sooner that I plan to come to an end myself, this works even better for me...because now I can finish it when it needs to be finished...
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