Category Archives: Personal

Taking a Break But Not Forever

Posted in Body Image, Cost, Diabetes, Exercise, Mental Health, Personal, Relationships, Type 1, Women's Health by

Much has changed since I started this blog on September 11, 2013. My nonfiction grad school cohort can tell you how much I didn’t want to write about diabetes for my MFA thesis – the book that became the start to this blog. And in the six years since I’ve been diagnosed, I am still learning new things about myself with this disease.

I wanted to share those experiences with the world and contribute to a community of Type 1s. And maybe I wanted to prove to myself that I could manage life given this short end of the stick. What I didn’t expect when I started this blog back in 2013 was where it would take me and what kind of content my readers would inspire me to write.

I cannot tell you much I value your readership and support these past two years. You are the reason I keep this blog going. You are the reason I continue to write. And although this blog has kept me writing and contributing to this online community, I must now re-focus my priorities and take what little time I have to write to devote to other publishing opportunities. Continue reading →

In the Prime of Life: Roscoe’s Imprint

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I walk home from my latest book club meetup. I’m wearing jeans and a jacket for the first time in months. This late September, it finally feels like fall. I pass through the wooden tunnel beside the latest construction zone. The wooden foundation seems to shake with each footstep, but I feel safe and somehow separate from the world in this enclosure.

I look down at my phone and see a missed text from a former colleague. She asks if I’ve read her latest email. I check my google inbox, and see the email with the subject line: Roscoe’s death at 95. I quickly scan its contents and then call my friend, tears streaming down my face. I exit the tunnel and stop at the crosswalk, waiting for the walk sign.

Meeting Roscoe

In 2013 a few weeks after I completed my MFA in creative writing and publishing arts, a former colleague of mine approached me at work asking if I could help with a self-publishing book project. I was hesitant at first, having never published anything but my own work and feeling a bit burnt out from graduate school. But I agreed to meet this self-publishing connoisseur. Continue reading →

Evelyn Sophie: Independent Woman

Posted in Personal, Travel, Women's Health by

I would feel better if you were a man and as independent as you are.

I stand in line at Reagan National, waiting to board my Southwest plane to Dallas. It was 40-degrees when I left my apartment this morning, but I dress plainly in jeans, my favorite color blotted flats, and a pink vintage t-shirt. In the fluorescent light, passersby can see my pale pink bra underneath. I fold my black jacket in my arms while my backpack pushes against the bar separating me from the boarding line to the gate attendant behind me.

A middle aged woman with blond waves next to me looks down at my right hand and smiles.

“Oh that’s interesting,” she says, pointing to my mood ring, now an Ohio River green. When I bought it in a thrift store in Louisville, I picked it out for its design (and I have always had a thing for mood rings – the bracelet on my left hand, which I stole from my mom, always emanates two mood stones with a pearl stone in the middle). I didn’t realize until later that the ring’s intricate silver design was in the shape of a dolphin. Who doesn’t love dolphins?

“It’s pretty,” she clarifies. I smile and say thanks. I acknowledge my normal reception to her intersection into my life. Usually I’m awkward, uttering a mild something or try to force a half-smile. But I’m finally leaving this DC life and heading towards the 80-degree, sunny weather of Dallas, where distant family also reside. I am happy even if tired from a 7 a.m. Saturday wake-up call. Continue reading →

Failing DC

Posted in Mental Health, Personal, Relationships by

There have been various reasons I have been a little absent from this blog.

I don’t want to talk about diabetes because it still befuddles me and all my recent insurance hassles and doctor visits just make me upset. I don’t want to talk about dating because I’m tired of being disappointed. I don’t want to talk about work because I’m tired of it taking up most of my life and stressing me out like no other. I don’t want to talk about DC because I still have no close friends in proximity to me and it depresses me to hell (sometimes). I don’t want to talk about Norm, my cat, because well, he’s had a rough month, too, and no one wants to hear about a miserable kitty.

But more than all of that, I haven’t written on this blog because up until a week ago, I was pretty sure I had utterly and despicably failed in DC, and I was pretty devastated by this realization. I thought it might be time to consider moving on, maybe even move back to Kentucky for a while. Why did I think I had failed? Here are a few speculations: Continue reading →

The One With the Silent ‘G’

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“Guhhhhnadinger,” my third grade classmate attempted to pronounce my last name as he handed me my name tag. It was the first time I realized there might be something wrong with my last name, and that I would struggle with this deformity for the rest of my life.

When I was in fifth grade, my teacher pronounced it with a hard “g” at the end, and although my classmates corrected her, technically it was correct. In fact, even though most of my immediate family pronounces our last name with a soft “a” and second “g” at the end, most of the rest of the family pronounces it with a hard “A” and second “G.” And according to my dad, this is the closest pronunciation to the original spelling.

It’s a rather simple last name if you take away the German “G.” Instead of “Gnadinger,” you would have “Nadinger,” and I think everyone would know how to pronounce that, but it’s that damn “G” that throws everyone off. Anytime I attend a conference, go to the pharmacy, or any place that must check me off a list, I always introduce myself as “Gnadinger … G… n…a…d…” Always.

It comes naturally. And growing up, I thought how easy it would be if I didn’t have this German conundrum. Apparently, when my German ancestors migrated here in the 19th century, they changed the spelling to make it more “American.” Yet they couldn’t get rid of the silent “G.” Continue reading →

From Here to There Yet Nowhere

Posted in Animals, Mental Health, Personal, Travel by

When I’m in Louisville, Kentucky, on the border of southern Indiana, I see large Maple trees and gravel pathways lined with yellow patches of grass and fallen crisp leaves. A Beagle-Greyhound mix runs in front of me, sniffing at the brown speckled frog camouflaged by rocks and pebbles along the path. A man of 20, just starting out in the world, lights a cigarette nearby. And another man of 26 attempts to restrain the dog and keep her out of the way of the oncoming cyclist.

When I’m in Bethesda, Maryland, on the border of Washington, DC, I hear ambulance sirens and beeping horns of SUVs and BMWs. I sidestep an upraised brick in the sidewalk and bypass an orange cone of a construction zone, the latest in a series of luxury condo high rises. I pass by commuters listening to headphones and carrying laptop bags with their eyes glued to smart phones. I also attempt to drown out the noise of the city with my mood’s latest trend – this time dubstep. And then I move out of the way of an oncoming cyclist.

Belonging

More than a year ago, I made the move from Baltimore to DC. And four years before that I made the move from Cincinnati to Baltimore. And five years prior to that, I left my hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.

So exactly 10 years ago, a few weeks from today, I ventured from my roots with no plans to return. Of my two brothers and various family members, I have so far been the only one to do so (not including those who left before me). But what I didn’t realize then was what I would be giving up and what I would never be able to have again: a home. Continue reading →

‘It’s All About Perspective’

Posted in Body Image, Diabetes, Mental Health, Personal, Relationships, Travel by

More than a week ago, I was in Louisville, Kentucky for my 10-year high school reunion. In addition to that, I spent a wonderful extended weekend with family and friends celebrating birthdays and life’s successes. And all of this while sleeping on a cot (because like myself, my parents do not waste space — as soon as I left for college my old bedroom was turned into a bedroom for my brothers and then an office for my parents).

And although I may complain every time I visit about the sleeping accommodations and the fact that I lay exposed in the living or dining room, I am secretly proud of my parents for not keeping my bedroom as a shrine, for making the most of what they have.

But since that weekend, I have endured countless awful days of stress and anxiety. And I sank into a small depressive hole, questioning what I was doing with my life and why my personal and professional lives could not co-exist in the same city.

Photo Aug 17, 2 16 46 PM

Devastating News

That is until I learned one of my best friends was almost beaten to death on his bike over a cell phone. Suddenly my questions about a meaningful existence seemed irrelevant. Because all that mattered is that my best friend made it out okay. All that mattered was that someone I loved would survive this tragedy without too much scarring. Continue reading →

A Not So ‘Silent Spring’

Posted in Cost, Diabetes, Food, Personal, Research, Type 1, Women's Health by

Rachel Carson Silent SpringIt should be amazing to me that in the six years since I’ve been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and the four years I’ve been involved in the sustainability movement, I have yet to read Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, a classic for environmental health advocacy. This is the book that catapulted events leading to the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency and the ban on the production of DDT (the effects of this chemical are sadly still with us today).

And yet it was published in 1962 by a woman. That was more than 50 years ago, and I admit Carson might appreciate that we have taken her words to heart, but she would probably be disappointed with the amount of toxic chemicals that still plague our homes and health statuses.

Even though my chronic disease is “autoimmune,” my body showed no evidence of this fact. And even though my doctors tell me it’s probably genetic, I have no family history. The media and scare over the diabetes epidemic would have you believe it’s my fault, but I’ve always taken good care of myself and have always been in good health until six years ago. Continue reading →

The Meaning of Life (as told by Normandy the Cat)

Posted in Animals, Personal by

Unlike dogs, cats have never quite been domesticated. In fact, rather than controlling them, cats think they have control of us. They’ve somehow figured out how to be fed, cleaned up after, and petted in all the right places, all the while having us think it’s for our benefit.

So what better species to deem life lessons from? In the nine months since I’ve adopted Norm, my black and brown two-year-old tabby, I’ve learned a few things from this feline who thinks my world revolves around him. Here’s what he has to say: Continue reading →

The Emptiness of Dating

Posted in Personal, Relationships by

I bend the blade of grass into a braid. I attempt to pull one end of the braid and pull it into a rose, but the blade breaks before the rose forms. I throw it behind me and rest my hands over my raised knees. The humid air suffocates my energy, but the hot sun makes me feel alive. I feel the sweat drip down the back of my blouse and disappear at the tip of my bottom.

My date is talking about soccer or some sport, and I nod my head every few minutes, but I’m looking at the horizon. We sit on a hilltop, and as I watch the bees and flies buzz around me, I want to cry. I feel nothing, but I feel something. And even though my disinterest shows, my date doesn’t seem to mind.

He asks me questions, and I give him quick answers. He looks me in the eyes and smiles, and I fake a half-smile. There’s nothing wrong with this man next to me. He may be short and slightly balding, but after a few dates, I surmise he’s a good guy. And if I felt something, I might have another relationship opportunity, even if only for the short-term. Continue reading →