It is a remarkable thing to have a hard target number at
your disposal with which to measure both progress and well-being.
Since I discovered that I had diabetes, each day I walk, eat
only what will reverse the insulin resistance in my body and thereby restore my
beta cells to health, and track my progress.
It is easy to do.
A small pinprick, a bright red spot of blood, delivered into a home
measuring device…and I have my answer.
From the first day when I found a blood sugar above 250,
(dangerously high, and actively destroying kidney, pancreas, and retinal beta cells),
I have watched my blood sugar levels dropping. They got stuck for a week or so, hovering around one sixty,
and I thought I might have to begin taking medication, something I am actively
seeking to avoid. But then today,
at 3PM, the small ring tone sounded and the number on the screen was 96.
Wow!
I am quite certain my blood sugar has not been that low, (60
to 80 is normal), for more than a year and a half. Now that I have had the opportunity to research the disease,
and connect the dots with all the symptoms I have experienced, (but did not
know were linked to diabetes), I realize that my numbers have been at dangerous
levels for a good long while.
My backache is still with me, (I thought it was old age –
turned out it was a pancreas in dire straights), and I am still in the toxic
range, (140 and above), some portion of everyday. But…a slow and steady drop is once more the norm.
I cannot recall anything in my life being as empowering as graphing
those numbers has become.
I have created a chart, which shows, in a very graphic
fashion the ups and downs of my blood sugar levels. Spread out over the first month with several more to come
are the penciled lines of an up and down progress, which has an overall
southern direction. Beginning as
soon as my blood sugar dipped below emergency numbers, there is a small pink
dot, placed above five days of the week denoting the days I march around the
block with all my small dogs in tow.
It is the very definition of self-reliance.
My Beloved Teachers message to me was not one of Hope, nor
Love, nor Peace. His message was
consistently and continuously one of Self Reliance.
He strove not to instill us with warmth, but rather with the
stamina and commitment of a warrior…alone on the battlefield, outnumbered,
outmanned, and outgunned.
Why is that?
Why self-reliance and not community, or tribe, or a found family?
I believe it was because he was hoping to groom leaders,
people of a certain boldness who had the will, and the fortitude to persevere
through the loneliness, that is required for anyone to truly know themselves,
and through that knowledge, to glimpse the Universe Entire.
He often repeated his mandate…”I serve the deck, not the individual
cards.” It took me a very long
time to understand that serving the deck meant that his students were only
important from the long perspective, from the perspective of Eternity and the
survival of the species.
As individuals he required from us that most elusive of attributes,
Self Reliance.
The first gift of the disease that is now functioning in my
life, is to make me capable of truly seeing how self-reliant I have become.
Each day, only I can make the choices that will result in my
bodies restoration, only I can do the research, learn the skills, test the
limits, reinforce the boundaries, and cross the finish line.
When once I could not bear to be alone, to face the inner
fears that populated my life like rotting rust, now I stand inside myself with
such calm, fierce, loyal, and trustworthy sure-footedness that I am quite
simply amazed.
I do not have the life that I had wished for, nor the one
that I had hoped for. I live alone;
I do not bounce from pillar to post seeking salvation in any form. I stand quietly inside myself, capable
of meeting all of my own emotional needs from within. Calm, clear-eyed, and watchful…I merely observe…and
celebrate.
I understand now, that I have become the leader my Beloved
Teacher hoped I might one day be.
I do not have a following, and I hazard to guess that I might never have
one…but that part is not my doing.
My job was to become truly Self Reliant. To chip away like the sculptor, knowing
that a masterpiece resides inside the stone. I have done the work… and have become liberated from the
desire to seek without, that which can only be found within.
I no longer need someone to hold my hand, to rock me into a
troubled sleep, or to sing me the lullabies of the lost.
I am home.
I can face my life, physical decline, and death on my own
terms…quiet and resolved. I
cherish that awareness; I bow down to the journey that has led me here.
I am unafraid.
Can there be anything better than that? Is there even a shred of a thing, which
the world could offer as competition for such a state? Of course not…
So, today, I have had a victory. A number in the double digits, a reward for taking effective
and competent action, but one day, not so far off, victory will no longer be
possible…and I will be just as content on that day, as this one.
And that is Self Reliance.
Adayre R. Miller
5/2/2014
