Heartwings Love Notes

Heartwings says, “How we frame our experiences can help them help us grow.”

I participate in an internet group of people who deal with being in some way disabled. The chief experience they share is blindness. I have great admiration for the positive attitudes I’ve encountered among this group, and most particularly those of their founder and leader Patty Fletcher. She asked me to contribute some writing about my experiences with Parkinson’s and the disabilities I cope with.

There is a saying to the effect that if all of us were to hang our troubles on a tree, rather than exchange them, each would take back their own. I have only admiration for how others cope with being without sight. My Parkinson’s, a neurological condition, presents me with extreme slowness and considerable weakness. My hands are slow and rather clumsy; I can no longer sew and dealing with buttons is too challenging. My writing dwindles as I try to form the words. I tire easily, have balance issues, and walk bent over.

Coping with these conditions, at least for me, revolves around not feeling I need to try to do more or do better than I am able at the time. Some days are better, some worse. Making comparisons between the present and the past is negative, creating even more frustration than I already experience. I often underestimate how much time anything will take me and end up being late. Of course, I fear looking awkward or pitiable, although currently I do not shake and tremble as many with this condition do. That can change.

  At least at this time my mind remains clear, apparently unaffected except for some forgetfulness. I’d be surprised if I wasn’t somewhat so at my age. I feel blessed for that, and for the help I receive from my dear husband and the Elder Services available to me. My mother started losing her mental focus in her 70’s, and lost much of it by the age I am now—I’ll be 90 this fall.

My current best coping mechanism is to see my condition as graduate school, working on a Master’s in patience and detachment, enhancing my ability to keep on keeping on. I struggle with my attempts to maintain my equilibrium keeping my mind on the present and ignoring thoughts of what I was once able to do. Comparisons with the past have little to no use when it comes to making progress; avoiding that keeps me focused on what I am able to accomplish.