I have certainly lived a variety of wide and vivid lives over the years. I have morphed into various versions of myself, sometimes knowingly and willingly, sometimes moulded and controlled versions.
The 18-20 year old young woman who married at 18 and had their first child at 20 started out – even though I had my fair share of misbehaving as a teenager – I was somewhat of an innocent in the big wide world of relationships. I had been brought up in a traditional nuclear family where Mum mostly stayed at home and kept the home fires burning, cooking, cleaning and generally in the nurturing role of caring for us kids and our Dad too. I know he certainly liked being looked after and I know my Mum often baked things he liked and made meals that he liked with his wishes and choices always overriding ours. One funny thing that I learned from my Mum was a conversation she related to me when I was a teenager. Now, I’m not sure whether I have this round the right way, but anyway you will get the gist. After probably 20 odd years together – it could have been more – Dad said to Mum “You always cut the carrots in circles and I much prefer them to be cut lengthwise!” I know Dad was not one to complain much, but Mum said, she couldn’t believe that every time carrots were dished up, for all those years he had ‘suffered in silence’ although suffering may not be quite the right word! But you get the gist! I think Mum probably had to pick her jaw up off the floor!
Now, I am – I hope – older and wiser and have learned a lot from my three marriages and certainly know that this marriage has everything I need and my husband is very much ‘a keeper’.
I’ve put a link to my podcast on this topic. You might enjoy and identify with some of the things I talk about here. You might notice that my voice changes along the way, but that is just the nature of my Parkinson’s voice. Sometimes it has more depth and inflection, sometimes it sounds a bit flatter. But, rather than rerecording a podcast simply because my voice might be a bit flat, I think it is more honest to go with however my voice presents, because that is my realty at the time of recording. I don’t feel the need to go back and inject more humour or life into my voice. You get that naturally most of the time. But, if my voice is gravelly or without much inflection, but the message is worth hearing, then so be it. Please look past how my voice might sound in the moment and hopefully, it will have some value for you.
My journey with Parkinsons 