It’s two in the morning.

The house is silent. The quiet humming of the fan in the corner of my bedroom is comforting.

I hit my phone’s flashlight on — the bright light waking me up. I crawl out of bed to get another insulin pump from the drawer in my closet. I rip off my old pump, the residue leaving my skin sticky and itchy. I fill the new one with enough insulin for the next three days.

While I wait I put on an episode of Friends on my phone. Some noise to keep me company.

This is when diabetes makes me feel lonely. When it’s just me and my pump change, the rest of the house unaware that I’m even awake.

Awake doing the very thing that keeps me alive. It’s become such clockwork, I don’t give it much thought anymore. It’s when I forget to change my pump before bed and it’s 2am that I’m met with all of my thoughts all at once.

It’s in these quiet moments where my mind is much like a tangled ball of yarn.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Covid and where we’re at as a country. All government assistance and measures put in place to protect one another, especially our most vulnerable are now gone. Less and less people are taking precautions and people are back to coughing on each other in the grocery store. What should have resulted in lasting public safety measures has been written off because of political and social pressure.

People are still getting sick, reporting of positive cases is not what it was and so many are facing the never ending and still unknown battles of long covid.

I go back to work in a couple weeks and there are no longer protocols on set. Up until this point, work has been the one place I felt truly safe and as masks were required, I felt like less of an outcast. I’ve been mentally preparing myself about potentially being the only one still choosing to wear a mask when I go back.

It’s in these quiet moments where it’s just me and the tiny vial of insulin keeping me alive that I am met with the constant that is diabetes.

Diabetes has been a part of my life for almost 14 years. While I’ve tried to keep a glass half full attitude about it, I’ve made an effort to be more transparent with the fact that it is not easy. It’s often exhausting — counting carbs at every meal, remembering low snacks every time I leave the house and countless hours dealing with insurance companies and pharmacies.

I saw a video lately where a guy was talking about how he still wears a mask to mitigate his own risk but also from a disability justice standpoint. He said he gets so many comments saying that he should just go back to normal and live his life. I find comments like that so bizarre because 1) what even is normal anymore? Covid is forever part of our new normal. And 2) me wearing a mask IS allowing me to live my life.

I don’t know what the likelihood is of me developing long covid. I’ve been vaccinated and boosted but from what I’ve read that doesn’t much matter in regards to the potential of developing long covid. What I do know is that I don’t want anything “long”. I already have lifelong diabetes. The voice in the back of my mind telling me that poorly controlled diabetes can lead to vision problems, kidney failure and nerve damage. Is my diabetes poorly controlled? No. But I have a lifetime of management that I have to take into consideration. The mental toll all that can take on a person is insurmountable.

So, I will continue to do what I can to keep myself safe…to protect the parts of myself that I need to keep healthy.

It’s in these quiet moments where I give myself permission to be frustrated. Wishing I was asleep but instead making sure my body is getting the very thing keeping me alive.

My pump beeps. I’m brought out of my mind and back to the now. I place my pump on the side of my right thigh. I press start and hear the warning clicks, bracing for the moment the needle hits my skin.

It’s 2:10AM. I turn off my phone’s flashlight and lie back down. The room is dark again. Friends is still playing on my phone. I close my eyes and eventually fall back to sleep as Ross says Rachel and the fan whispers good night.