When does the "easy part" start?

I so haven't been in the mood to blog lately.  My husband and I have both been sick for what feels like forever now.  But really, it's only been about a week or so.  Nothing too seriously, but we've both had fevers and chills and been horribly exhausted.  Of course, it's one of those things that the doctors can't do anything about and you just have to wait for it to run its course and be done with you.  Ugh!

The "easy part"....I've come to the realization that there's a popular misconception in our society.  It seems to me that people think that they work hard, put in their time, and eventually, life will magically become "easy".  My husband has even complained about this several times, that no matter how hard we work, it just doesn't seem like life is getting any easier.  Really though....is life supposed to get easier?  Who in the world told you that it would?  Random people you meet on the streets, fellow parents whose children are much older than ours.  They tell us all the time, "it gets easier."  When?  When does it get easier?  So far, I'm not seeing when it will.  Life is a struggle.  We work hard, we put all our efforts into raising children, teaching them the right values and lessons so they'll be just as beautiful inside as they are outside.  We pay our bills, clean our homes, organize our lives, and just generally go about our daily activities.  And you know what?  It never gets easier!  You know why?  Because it's not supposed to!  Seriously.  Life isn't supposed to be easy.

That's coming across as depressing, isn't it?  It shouldn't be though.  It shouldn't make us feel bad that life never gets easier.  We shouldn't get frustrated and upset as we continue to struggle towards our goals.  Here's my reasoning....have you ever walked around your block?  Did you feel like you'd accomplished something when you did?  No?  Of course not!  You didn't have to work for it!  Talk to someone who has run a marathon and ask them the same question.  They'll tell you that they felt like they were on top of the world!  They accomplished something.  They did something that took effort and determination.  That's what life is.  It's not a sprint or a stroll around the block.  It's a marathon.  It requires endurance, patience, determination, drive, and all those other things that are more difficult to come by.  Life is not meant to be "easy".  If it was, we wouldn't appreciate all the good things life offers us.  Instead of sitting around, complaining about how difficult it is and waiting for it to be easy, we need to get up and appreciate all of our daily accomplishments.  My big accomplishment today....Lily was low at lunch and didn't eat much.  I went with my gut and didn't give her any insulin because I knew we'd spend the afternoon running around.  Two hours later, she was an awesomely fantastic 93!  Love that!

Okay, so on to the reason why I'm sucking it up and blogging tonight.  I wanted to share our day.  When I was growing up with diabetes, I attended a camp on the western edge of Wisconsin.  Camp Needlepoint.  How appropriately named, right?  Camp Needlepoint was awesome!  Fantastic!  The absolute best thing about my childhood.  Seriously, I think camp was my true home and I just stayed with my family, waiting for the next year when I could go back.  I loved, loved, loved camp!  A few years back, the camp hired a new director.  Best thing that could have happened to the camp.  The director they hired was a former camper herself.  She frequently tells the story of how her parents dragged her, kicking and screaming, to camp her first year.  And then dragged her away from camp, kicking and screaming, every year after.  A camper after my own heart!  I call her the best thing to happen to the camp because the previous director had been missing a very vital component of camp.  The HEART of it.  Only a true camper-for-life can appreciate what that means.  One other very awesome thing about the camp director...she has a niece, just a little younger than Lily, who was diagnosed with type I just a few weeks after Lily was.  So, this incredibly awesome camp director invited her sister to bring her niece and invited me to bring Lily to visit the camp today.  Oh, how I missed camp!  Going back for a visit is like going home again.  My heart was missing that piece that I left behind at camp!

I showed up to the camp just after 11:00 this morning, with Lily and Leo in tow.  I've been talking to Lily about Camp Needlepoint, what it is, and the fact that all of the kids who go there have diabetes and do "pokies" just like she does.  I wasn't sure how much of it she understood though.  We toured the camp.  Wow, has it changed since I was last there!  It was so beautiful to see how much it has thrived though!  The HEART is there again!  The campers are there because they LOVE camp.  The same doctors and nurses and dietitians who have worked at the camp for years are still there.  Because they LOVE camp.  There's something about Camp Needlepoint that calls to your soul.  There's just no way to describe how incredible it is.  We had such a lovely day there.  Lily got to run around the camp, playing with her friend who also has diabetes.  The two little girls became honorary members of one of the cabins of younger girls.  Lily got to see all of these children, poking their fingers, pulling out their insulin pumps, and running and playing just like every other child who goes to camp!  And my absolute favorite part of the day...as we were getting ready to go home, after a good four hours of visiting, Lily said to me, "I can go to Camp Needlepoint?"  With all the awe and wonder that I feel every time I get to go back for a visit at the camp!