ONLY HUMAN
It took Parkinson's to teach me what I didn't want to learn.
A dozen little Lady Gagas careen around my living room. Seventh birthday success! Despite my crazy work schedule, this mother monster had baked the cupcakes, fitted the wigs, drawn zigzags on their little faces.
Two hours later they left in a giggling stampede of shedding wig hairs, leaving me comatose on the sofa surrounded by cupcake wrappers and static-clingy strands that would tangle my vacuum forever.
“Mommy, can I open a present?” Sophia asked.
I barely raise my head. “We have to write it down.”
“Please, mommy?”
That’s the last thing I heard before I went under.
I woke up to crumples of discarded wrapping paper and an un-accounted-for pile of toys.
My husband, who had wisely decided to work that day, thought I was being too hard on myself. “You’re only human.”
“That’s no excuse,” I thought.
That’s what I always thought.
Too much work? Work harder.
Too little sleep? That’s why God made Starbucks Ventis.
I give myself more grace now. If there’s one thing to not hate about Parkinson’s, it forces you to accept limits. But was I less demanding now, or do I simply cave to my dwindling energy supply?
I wondered if it was just me, or did other people with Parkinson’s feel this way?
So I created a short, anonymous survey for the women in my Parkinson’s support group, asking how pressure and expectations had changed for them from before diagnosis to now.
This was the biggest shift the survey revealed.
The pressure we put on ourselves to perform decreased steadily from before diagnosis to diagnosis, to now.
Beth M: “If I can complete one activity in a day, well, that’s just fine. Two things? Amazing. Not my usual dozen.”
Maybe good enough is…good enough.
Kathleen: “My mom gave me advice a long time ago, and it finally hit home. She said, ‘Leave it alone.’
Fran: If you’re lucky enough to have a partner, let them support you. Be kind to yourself.
Reading their answers, I realized something I never would have chosen to learn.
All my life, I’ve fought against being human—against limits, fatigue, fear, need.
It took Parkinson’s to teach me this:
accepting I’m only human is what finally makes me fully human.
I’m grateful to the women in my support group who shared their experiences so honestly.