I have a gift for worrying about things that are totally outside of my control. I think I inherited it from my mother but that may just be an excuse. I worry about the world, the community we live in, problems facing my family, friends and acquaintances. I often take on another person’s worries and set aside my own issues while I look for solutions for them. It isn’t that their challenges are more important than mine, rather that it gives me an opportunity to escape from my stuff to work on theirs. When I try to fix other people’s problems I am just avoiding my own.

Caring for a loved one with a chronic illness is not a picnic. The task is much bigger than I ever imagined and comes with a whole boatload of potential worry. I am anxious about our health, our home, our financial welfare. My primary concern is always about our future and “what will tomorrow look like?” With Parkinson’s Disease in our lives, we can never know for sure.

My personal journey contains enough challenges without adding additional burdens. I need to be able to differentiate between those things in my life that I am in control of and those I’m not. I want to be able to express my concerns to other people, share my thoughts, maybe discuss options and then let it all go. Given the chance, everyone has the ability to find their own solutions without my intervention or worry. Just as importantly, I have to stay focused on what matters most when I am not trying to fix things for everyone else.