Each year, the end of the holiday season brings with it a peculiar mixture of sadness, hope, and relief. Despite the chaotic blur of decorating the tree, hanging lights, writing cards, and trying to create the perfect Christmas for each of my kids, it’s always a bit of a bummer to see it end and everything return to business as usual.

Of course, business as usual from a work perspective is exactly what I’m ready for. As a retail business owner, I‘ve worked 16 hours a day for the past month and a half and am at such a point of exhaustion that I can’t sit still for more than five minutes without falling asleep. Managing my blood sugars during this annual ordeal is always my greatest diabetes challenge. I may not have much time for working out during the holidays, but I am so busy during each workday that I tend to burn more sugar than I do in a routine trip to the gym. This, as you can imagine, requires some tricky basal and bolus adjustments to keep me from having frequent hypos.

Now sitting here on New Year’s Eve, I’m ready to move from hypos to hope. Looking back, this has been a good year in many ways: The blog is up and running, I’m learning to manage the unwieldy beast of social media, and my book is getting ever closer to completion. I’m really excited about where everything is headed and am so curious to know what I will be writing on this day in 2018.

But my hope goes far beyond my personal projects. This year I’ve discovered that the Diabetes Online Community has an amazing collective voice and is filled with advocates pushing for change throughout the world. My hope now is that we can work together and make earth-shaking advancements in increasing diabetes awareness, making technology and medication accessible and affordable to everyone with diabetes, and creating and improving programs to teach diabetics more about how to manage their condition. If you know me, then you know that this latter issue is very dear to my heart because I believe with every fiber of my soul that education is the absolute cornerstone to successful self-management of diabetes.

Tonight as we get caught in the inner tug-of-war of looking backward and forward at the same time, let’s celebrate our victories, renew our hope, and get ready to make 2018 a year that will go down in history for all the right reasons. I believe we can—I know we can!

Well, I’m off to start setting up for the festivities. I just hope I can stay awake to see the ball drop in Time’s Square. Maybe a little coffee before the champagne will do the trick. Everyone have a fun-filled, but safe, evening.

Happy New Year from the Roberts family!