Starting over

Parkinson’s won’t let me commit to 24 hours, let alone 365 days. So I’m just going to try to make every day January the first.

I’ve never been awfully good at planning. Something always jumps up that makes me change my plans. Aged 14, I had just started dating, and in my head my life was all mapped out up to pensionable age. But my father’s work forced a move south of the Thames, and the fun fizzled out.

Browsing through uni prospectuses under P for pharmacy, I stumbled on psychology and stopped thinking about managing my own branch of Boots the Chemist. If pharmacy had begun with an f and psychology with an s, this would never have happened.

Expecting a 2:1 and a research post in Cardiff, my disappointing ‘Desmond’ took me to Guildford instead. No regrets, this was where I met my first husband. When he died in a car accident I arrived home to find two top job offers for him on the mat. I was just getting the hang of single parenthood when another lovely man swept me off my feet, though to be fair, my daughter did most of the hard work.

I sorted out business cards and branding for a new freelance business. Then I was offered a full-time job that I couldn’t turn down.

And so it continued, a long sequence of sliding doors and what-ifs. I was all set for an active retirement till my Parkinson’s diagnosis. Now I’m set for an even more active retirement, as I discover how important it is to keep exercising.

Best laid plans

My Parkinson’s is like a small backpack. Some days it may be full of rocks, others feathers. Sometimes I can put it down and forget about it; other times I have it weighing me down all day. Like Forrest Gump’s chocolates, I never know what to expect. Like Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans, I have to accept the risk of the occasional snot flavour, or, alas, earwax.

Resolutions? Parkinson’s won’t let me commit to 24 hours, let alone 365 days. Who knows how I will feel tomorrow? So my simple plan is to treat every day as if it is New Year’s Day. Press the reset button on waking, and see what comes along. No failure, no cancelling expensive gym membership in the middle of February. No panicking that my post-Christmas to-do list is 80+ items long. I’ll just stop, take stock and focus on the single item that is most important right now.

Happy 2022 everyone!

Play >> (Just Like) Starting Over >> John Lennon

In Beautiful Boy, another track on the Double Fantasy album, Lennon sang:

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

At the time, he was in what we might now call ‘a good place’. He’d taken a five-year break from the music industry, during which he settled down as househusband with Yoko Ono and their baby son Sean. His comeback album Double Fantasy was released in November 1980. The reception was lukewarm, but for a few weeks this looked like the start of a new chapter in his life. Unfortunately, a good place is not always the same as a safe place.