Soundtrack of Type 1 Diabetes

If you've been following my blog for any stretch of time, you'll know that I like to have a soundtrack for my travels.  It should come as no surprise then that I turn to music when it comes to navigating a new diagnosis.  As far as I know, none of these songs or musicians I use for my soundtrack have any connection to type 1 diabetes, but I found meaning in it nonetheless.

During my trip to Vancouver the end of April (stay tuned to hear about this trip!), I magically chose to visit at the same time as Bastille.  Interestingly, my mom and sister recently managed to visit the Grand Canyon the same day as Bastille... A sign that I am going to marry a British musician?  I think yes and I even sent my mother videos of the concert asking what she thought of her future son-in-law.  She seemed to approve.  Anyway...Bastille's "new" album was released just two weeks before my diagnosis. Even before I knew I had diabetes, I was already applying it to my own life.

Song: "Lethargy." Defining lyric: "Lethargy got ahold of me and I don't know how to shake it." Ignoring the fact that that is grammatically inaccurate because Bastille can do no wrong...that pretty much sums up the weeks leading up to my diagnosis.

Song: "An Act of Kindness." Defining lyric: "You caught me by surprise in this town of glass and ice...and now it follows me everyday." #relevant

​Song: "Shame." Defining lyric: "I never knew I could be slowed down. Until I met you." Almost sounds like he's singing right to diabetes, eh? (Sorry, I've been to Canada a lot recently.)

Song: "The Anchor." Defining lyric: "Bring me some hope by wandering in to my mind, something to hold on to, morning, noon, day, or night. You are the light that is blinding me, you're the anchor that I've tied to my brain because when it feels like I'm lost at sea, you're the song I sing again and again." This is how I felt about my other type 1 friends at diagnosis.

Aside from that album, I gathered plenty of other applicable songs and put them in a playlist on Spotify titled "Ma Maladie." I hate it when people refer to my diabetes as "your health condition," "your disability," or "this disease that you have." I learned the French word for this from the French diabetes book that mysteriously arrived in the post.

Song: "Your Body is a Weapon" by The Wombats. Defining lyric: "My body is a temple of doom." Lol - Je comprends la lutte.

Song: "Future Looks Good" by OneRepublic.  This also came out right around my diagnosis and I listened to it with irony, considering that my future with diabetes did not look good.  However, I found the irony entertaining and OneRepublic songs always seem to be released at pivotal points in my life so it works haha.

Song: "Tickle Me Pink" by Johnny Flynn. Defining lyric: "The one I've got is shoddy, I need a brand new body and then I could have a brand new start."  He's talking a heart, but I think of it as a pancreas/immune system. 

Song: "I Wanna Get Better" by Bleachers. Pretty self-explanatory...

​Song: "Black Water" by Of Monsters and Men. Defining lyric: "Swallowed by a vicious, vengeful sea, darker days are raining over me, in the deepest depths, I lost myself, see myself through someone else." Perfectly captures the harsh beauty of Iceland's landscape, the site of my diagnosis.

Song: "Fixin'" by Walk the Moon. Defining lyric: "It starts with a glimpse, a shimmer, a shadow of something I had once but since lost and now I've got a feeling that I'm not complete anymore." This, I relate back to life before and after diagnosis.

Song: "Silver and Gold" by Noah and the Whale. Defining lyric: "You're just hanging on to a shimmer of hope of the life you had before, but it's too late." This follows the same pattern. 

Song: "Prospekt's March" by Coldplay. Defining lyric: "So here I lie, on my own in a separate sky. I don't want to die on my own here tonight." Kind of morbid, but I think of this every low blood sugar.

Song: "Low" by Coldplay. Defining lyric: "Because I feel low." Lol, a less serious take also for every low blood sugar.

Song: "Hopeless Wanderer" by Mumford and Sons. Defining lyrics: "How I long to grow old."  This is something I never would have thought of in this way before.  Growing old is seen as bad, after all everyone wants to be young forever, right?  But when the future is uncertain and life expectancy is much shorter, I find myself talking to people in their 60s and 70s and wondering if I'll live long enough to have experiences like they have.

So, what do you all think of my future British musician fiance?