What's wrong with everyone?

Not much has changed. I'm still here, and I'm still mad. And I'm even mad about being mad.

I've never been an angry person. I've dealt with a lot of crap, and I haven't let it get to me, for the most part. I've never been one to hold grudges. My college degree is in psychology. I understand grief. I get that this is part of it. I just don't have time for it. Go away, grief.

Part of it is that this year, we are participating in the JDRF Walk for a Cure. As great and positive as it is, and as good as it feels to DO SOMETHING, it's intensifying things. I take it so personally. We sent out this letter via email with a link to our website and our walk video, and in the words of Laura, "...crickets..."

Don't get me wrong. We didn't expect every single person to write back. We certainly didn't expect most people to donate. Or to join our walk team. And we have been blown away by the number of people who have. It's the people who haven't so much as mentioned it that we were sure would. Family. Close friends. And it's REALLY getting to me.

Mainly because we made ourselves so vulnerable in all this. Since Liam's diagnosis, we've done all we can to maintain our image of strength. I can't say whether it's been more to convince the people around us that we can handle this, or to convince ourselves and our precious little boy. Probably both, to different degrees. We don't fall apart. We don't complain much. We just do what needs to be done, and forge on. On top of that, we live hundreds of miles away from the family and friends we have known our whole lives. Most of them have seen us twice since Liam's diagnosis, if that. They don't see us aging as we go night after night on hardly any sleep. They don't watch us as we work frantically behind the scenes doing all the things we do as pancreases- before we even get to be "parents." They don't hear the heartbreaking questions Liam asks us. They don't know what this "type 1 diabetes" thing is. So more than I wanted their support, their sympathy, I just wanted them to KNOW, as much as they can, what it is we DO around here.

So when all was quiet after our letter, after it was posted on facebook a few times and we STILL hadn't heard a thing from most people... I started to stew a little bit about it. When my husband got a page up on facebook for our walk team and supporters, I sent the invites out to several of these people. A couple surprised me. Most did not.

One, in particular has me especially angry. This girl and I were inseparable the first two years of our boys' lives. We started to grow apart when I had to go back to work, and then we both moved away. Things just got busy and the calls became fewer and further between. Nonetheless, this person is A) Human. B) A mom. C) In possession of a little boy who is 2 weeks older than my son, who does NOT have to worry about diabetes.

When her son was diagnosed with a slew of overwhelming food allergies at 2 years old and she was a mess, I took time out of my lunch break to go grocery shopping at specialty stores and brought her bags and bags of groceries that he COULD eat when it seemed like everything was about to change and he couldn't eat anything.  Because that is what friends DO. And with everything we are going through now, she can't even click "like" on my damn facebook page when explicitly invited to. It just ... I don't really know. I'm hurt. I'm angry.

And it's not just her. It is taking every ounce of willpower to not just go through my friends list and scream "UNFRIEND!!!!" while deleting each and every one of them who won't so much as click a box for me. For Liam.

I feel so isolated as it is. And this JDRF walk has made it so glaringly obvious how removed I've become from my friends. My old life. These people feel like strangers.