This too shall pass.

This is one of my favorite quotes. I find solace among these words, as even now I turn to them for comfort. To me, it is a reminder that this moment or what you’re feeling right now will soon fade away. If it’s bad, you will get through it, things will get better. If it’s good, cherish the moments because they too will pass.

It’s a reminder of the temporary nature of much of our experiences and emotions; pleasure and pain, sadness and joy. It’s a warning to live in the now. From a broken heart to a broken leg, this phrase offers hope.

While this proverb has helped me through many moments in my life, applying it to my life with diabetes proves more difficult.

A chronic disease is by definition, well, chronic. It’s long lasting, it continues, it does not pass. Until there is a cure, it is something that I am stuck living with for the rest of my life. On a bad diabetes day I can find comfort in the fact that tomorrow is a new day, but it’s still a day with diabetes. So what do you do? What can you do?

You accept it.

You let your anger pass. You let your frustrations pass. You let your sadness pass. You let the pain pass.

You may not be able to change what happens to you, but you can change how you respond to it. The only chronic part of diabetes is the disease itself, not how you feel about it. So why hold on to the negative, when it too can pass.