The Washington Post has a new feature: “What Day Is It?”
The Post said it is “to help you redefine and regain control of your week…March feels like yesterday, doesn’t it? It pains us, dear reader, to tell you that March was more than six months ago.”
I read those words while thinking about another related, time metaphor. Time had flatlined for me in 2020.
My usual calendar anchors had evaporated. Easter customarily marked the start of planning for our annual Thelen family gathering at New Smyrna Beach, FL. This year Beach Week didn’t happen. Covid-19 nixed it.
July 4th this year didn’t foreshadow special Labor Day doings, which used to slide into planning for Thanksgiving and Christmas get togethers. Not this year.
Leisure travel vanished. Covid-19 gave us quarantines, social distancing and masks. Our feet were nailed to the ground.
Living with Parkinson’s makes time uncertainty an even harder problem than it is for “civilians.“ We Parkies need hand holes to anchor our lives.
We fight to retain memories and mental habits (handholds) that Parkinson’s is determined to erase. Flattened time only adds stress, which is Ol’ Doc Parkinson’s sidekick.
The old normal of our lives is gone. The new challenge is finding behavioral norms and purpose that keep us engaged in service to others. “Making God’s Love Real, “ as my Methodist church of old put it.
Instead of feeling acted upon, I need to drive action in a vital cause, one within my reach. That cause is the wellbeing of my fellow Parkinson’s disease sufferers.
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