Life is like a game of bowls….

I have just returned home from playing outdoor bowls for the afternoon. I always enjoy Saturday afternoon as it is a laid back ‘roll-up’ with no pressure or prizes.

At the moment it is Winter Bowls where we pay an amount for the Winter season until the Summer Bowls start. Either that or $5, as a casual. There were enough to have two triples games, so we worked out our teams and started to play. It was a somewhat windy afternoon and it was enough wind to blow bowls along in a direction we had not planned on.

As play commenced – I was playing in second spot – we each took turns to bowl our bowls. As you play bowls you learn that different bowls take different tracks, some play from out wide, others take a narrower track. All of us trying to do the same job, which is to get as many bowls as we can, as close to the ‘Kitty’ or ‘Jack’ which is just a bit smaller than a tennis ball. So, it can be an interesting game as wind, the player’s skill level, moisture in the air, how you hold your bowl and launch it, weather in all it’s unpredictable guises. A whole lot of factors that affect the final outcome for the bowl.

Life is like a game of bowls.

Because.

• You never know how many storms you might encounter or how often life will settle down or a stiff wind blows you off course. Like when you were living your life and suddenly like a rampaging wind along comes Parkinson’s. You thought you had life sorted, that you knew the direction you were headed in, then came Parkinson’s. Big mean, ugly Parkinson’s suddenly enters your life. You then have a choice, do you make your life all about Parkinson’s, or do you enjoy the moments you have and face life head on? Grab joy while you can.
• As individual as we all are, our experience of Parkinson’s will be our own, it may have some similarities – we are all playing the same game – but the way we respond will be our own unique way.
• We will encounter others that have been playing this Parkinson’s game longer than we have. They may provide advice on how they manage to navigate their way. Some of the advice may work for you, some may not, but it can be useful to hear from others so that we can take from it what we feel is useful for us. Just like the game of bowls, what action or reaction we have against Parkinson’s it may help to get other perspectives, but ultimately we take from other experiences what informs us about our unique ‘brand’ of Parkinson’s.
• Life is unpredictable, just when you think you’ve got a handle on it, something comes out of the woodwork that you hadn’t expected.
• We may get discouraged from time to time, that Parkinson’s has the upper hand. That no matter what we do, we will always have to find a way to manage and work through things that cannot be avoided. Just like the game of bowls, we can’t predict what our opponent will do, they may have more skill than us and while we may not be able to beat them, we can take back some ground and celebrate the small wins.
• Just like the game of bowls, as we live through a life with Parkinson’s we will pick up skills to help us along the way. Practice may not make us perfect, but consistent protective factors such as exercise help to keep us stable for longer. If we just let our lives ride along the track that Parkinson’s is taking us on, we have not even tried to win. To give up at the first hurdle, the day of diagnosis and say, ‘I can’t win, so why bother?’ is like facing a tough opponent on the green and saying ‘they are better than me, so I am bound to lose’. Yes, ultimately we may have an unbeatable foe, but along the way, we may win parts of the game that mean we get to play for longer. Give up too soon – and too much – and the loss will be sooner and bigger.
• In my game of bowls yesterday, no matter what I did it almost seemed like I had forgotten how to play. My bowls just wouldn’t do what I wanted them to. I almost felt like giving up and going home. I said, ‘I would have been better to stay at home all the good I am doing here’. But, one bad day on the green doesn’t mean that I should give up the game completely. We all get up some mornings and can feel if we are going to have a bad day or a good day. If we feel we are likely to have a bad day do we just give up and accept it? Or do we do our best to at least achieve some small wins? Achieve some small wins in the day and at least we have come to play, faced our ruthless opponent and done our best.

This game of life we have with Parkinson’s will not be an easy game. But, it is just a part of our lives, just like bowls is a part of my life. It is important to me and I want to be good at it, but just because I am not always going to win, doesn’t mean I stop trying. Celebrate every battle won, every achievement no matter how small and look for the good in life, because much as we have this major foe to fight, we also have things to celebrate. Focus as much as you can on the good in life if you can. I know some days it is difficult to find the good amongst life’s challenges, but the more you seek the good, the better your life will ultimately be.

There is no trophy at the end of this game. But, hopefully we can look back – even now – and say ‘I did my best’.