In my day …

How often have we seen on the telly, someone saying “In my day…” and then regaling whoever was near with stories from their earlier lives. The person telling the tales often completely immersed in their own narrative and perhaps not even beginning to notice when eyes glaze over! I do find, however, these days as I get closer to retirement age, I do find myself comparing my life as a child growing up to today’s young ones. That is surely a sign of old age!

Growing up I was the youngest child of four and the only girl. I was fortunate to have three older brothers, in because they wanted to, but maybe because they didn’t want to face Mum if anything happened to me.

Some things that were different for me growing up below.

In my day:

• We didn’t have a lot of money or toys, but we were never bored as far as I can recall.
• We were out all day from morning to dinner time and would pack jam sandwiches and cordial and maybe an apple or two and roam around the fields for hours.
• We would go blackberry picking and bring them home to Mum who made blackberry jam with them.
• If we wanted to go somewhere, like to see our friends or go skating we had absolutely no expectation at all that a parent would drive us there. We either walked or biked and got to wherever we wanted to go. From my experience as a stepmother for a while to a teenage boy, he expected to be driven to everything he wanted or needed to do. He got in quite a huff when I said if it were one of my kids they would know they would be expected to get themselves to most things, apart from maybe GP visits or the dentist.
• There was no such things as microwaves in my mother’s kitchen, until I was well in my teens. My goodness, but that makes me sound old.
• I left home at 16 and went flatting. I haven’t thought about this until recently, but my 16-year-old friend and I both signed a tenancy agreement. I’m pretty sure now that would not have been legal. I was in a good job and earning a reasonable wage and paying my own bills. I can’t imagine many 16-year-olds being mature enough to do that these days.
• We didn’t have computers. Certainly not ones in the home. No internet, no cellphones, basically a pretty low-tech environment.
• We were out there biking, walking, playing for hours on end and it never occurred to me that there could possibly be any danger in that. We didn’t have cellphones, so we couldn’t ring home if we got into trouble and no-one could ring us. Now days I wouldn’t be comfortable with any of my grandchildren even walking around their neighbourhood unaccompanied by an adult.

I think when I was growing up there was a lot more expectation that we would kind of work out how to do the things we wanted to do. To be independent and not expect to be the centre of our parents’ worlds and to be able to get ourselves where we wanted to go.

If I had a problem I would usually try to figure it out for myself rather than expecting my parents to solve it for me. I think that stood me in good stead for coping with Parkinsons’ and also in knowing myself and what I need to manage my body and live my life with a reasonable amount of confidence.

In being given the freedom to roam with my brothers and to solve problems for myself, I know that I have the tools to solve any problem that Parkies might bring to me. I never forget that I have this diagnosis, but I don’t give it permission to take over my life. Some might say that I am overly focussed on my Parkies by writing this blog and also doing my podcasts. However, as I have explained to my husband, when I have things that I need to process, need to think through, by putting the words on the computer screen, I get them out of my head. Once I have finished a blog or podcast, I don’t think about Parkies any more that day. By getting the words out of my head in this way, I can process whatever I need to process and get on with the now.

I get things out of my head so well that when my husband tells me it was a good podcast or blog post, I often have to ask what it was about!!! Once it’s been sent out there in the ether to my blog or podcast, it really doesn’t continue to be in my head. I do think it is because I have trained myself to shut off any thoughts about Parkies once it has been sent out.

It works!