Visible Stress and Invisible Complexity

It has been a rushing kind of day. Well, a rushing kind of afternoon anyway. And I’ll be the first to admit it, I don’t do well with rushing. In fact, a lot of the rushing was because my kid literally didn’t believe that we needed to rush because, in her words, “You’re on Serenity Time. We’re going to be 15 minutes early anyway.”

Spoiler alert: We were not 15 minutes early. We were late. And this child, who I don’t think has ever been late to anything in her whole life, got to experience the stress of being pressed for time while entering an unfamiliar environment.

I’m happy about it. It was a good experience for her. My unique makeup means that, as I said, my kids have never been late to anything, ever. That may seem shocking, and I will admit that we have arrived somewhere after the start time, but that was always, always on purpose or pre-planned. They’ve been early, though. We’ve arrived at the airport with hours to spare, to doctor’s offices before they opened, to friends’ houses where we waited in the car until it was time to go in.

So, it makes sense that she would think I was exaggerating when I told her, “No, really, I need to you get ready faster.” But this time, we really were crunched. We would have made it, too, but we had to take a small detour while driving to deal with some diabetes stuff. Just 5 minutes, stopped along a side road for a snack and a dose and a blood sugar check. But that was enough.

That, by the way, is the reason we’re always early. Let’s be honest, I’ve never liked being late. I always feel like I’m being disrespectful and mostly I just don’t see the point. Why add more stress when you don’t have to?

These days, though, it’s about more than showing respect or being relaxed. It’s about building in time for the unexpected. I never know when we’re going to need to take 5 minutes, or even 10, to deal with a minor but urgent health concern. And having diabetes sucks enough. I don’t want to make it the reason for time stress, too.

It’s hard for me. A lot of people assume that my neurosis is because I’m uptight or controlling or bossy. I freely admit to being all of those things, but nope, that’s not the reason. It’s because I know that at any moment, I may need to step aside or pull over and deal with something that seems small but could get really big really fast.

The hardest thing in my life isn’t the ever-present fear or the extra work. It’s the complexity that is invisible. It’s knowing that if I make a mistake, my kid feels like crap or misses out on something. It’s coping with that pressure - pressure to always keep track, be on it, never let my guard down. It’s explaining, even to friends, why our lives move slower. Why we eat dinner at home almost every night. Why rushing from one sport to another, which may seem normal to them, feels like climbing a mountain to me.

I know people do it. Families with kids with Type 1 move through the world in lots of ways. But that’s not us. And I do know that we’ve been gifted a lot through adversity. We eat dinner together every night. That’s precious and sacred and I wouldn’t have had the stubbornness to hold onto it if I didn’t have a very good reason to.

But the biggest gift I’ve been given is the realization that there is a lot of invisible complexity in the world. There are a lot of people who are dealing with stressors that I will never know about. And so if they act a little weird, a little too much, a little intense? I’m getting better at realizing that maybe that’s their way of dealing with things I can barely understand.

Then again, maybe we’d all be a little better off if we realized that other people are usually dealing with things we can barely understand.