My safe place is my writing desk, and my thought process is two-fold utilizing a journal and this blog. I put the deeper and more troubling aspects of my life in my journal because I know that no one will ever see it. I can write whatever I want there, analyze the thoughts and then let them go. Sometimes I find solutions to problems, other times simply absolution for my feelings. Again, it is my place to put those things I can never say, and it keeps me from letting them slip out anyway.

My blogs are where I try to deal with daily life. I consider things I might be learning about my role as CarePartner and Parkinson’s Disease. I often find that journaling about a problem leads to a blog about whatever was bothering me in the first place. The journal becomes my blackboard, the blog my finished report.

Writing in my journal, writing this blog, gives me a release, a space where I can voice my concerns and then look at them with a clearer mind and perspective. I realize that not everyone processes thoughts in the same way I do and would encourage you to find whatever it is that works in your world. Perhaps it is painting or gardening, maybe a long walk allows you the freedom to escape for a few minutes and work through the many challenges we all share. The point is that we all need that time and that space, whatever it looks like, to take care of ourselves and figure out these crazy lives we are living.