As Parkinson's appears to take more of my physical ability away, the greater the urgency I feel to live a proper life; which really means live the life I thought I would have. It is as if a TV playing the movie of that life has been left suspended in front of me; I try to reach out to grasp what could have been but all I touch is the flat TV screen.
This urgency for a life is a fear of finding something special when it’s physically too late. It is founded on what is missing, and is fueled by the gap between memories of my physical presence before Parkinson's and what I am now.
However, I can turn the TV off and realise the future I thought I held in my hands was nothing at all; by watching only the TV, I was trying to hold onto a future that I never held in the first place. Also, being dragged from myself misses the ability that remains in me; defining myself as the things I am not is infinite but what I am is a particular instant of myself.
dr jonny
www.dialoguewithdisability.blogspot.co.uk
I don't feel the same urgency but I do feel increasingly frustrated about my plans for retirement which now cannot reach fruition. It seems to have the opposite effect on me, making me demotivated and aimless even with regard to what I still can do. Often I have the feeling that what I have left is rather pointless and that I'm already in God's waiting room, but at the back of a very long, slow moving queue.
I’ve been in both places. This time last year, before I was dx but was pretty certain what was going on, I really felt that, if I couldn’t do everything I used to what was the point of having me. Now - partly I suppose because the meds have restored some of my functionality - I feel dr j’s sense of urgency. But not for what is missing, but what I won't be able to do in time - so it’s all got to be done now! That feels positive to me: meaningful not fearful.
That seems to be the best attitude, Semele. Do what you still can, whilst you still can.