I Have Learned What is Most Important

I'm sixty years old.  Sometimes I feel every bit of that plus more........and other times I feel what I'm guessing normal may feel like.  Of course having had this disease for over 20 years now, I don't guess I really know what normal feels like.  Whatever.  But what I want to say is that PD (monster that it is)  has taught me different values - better ones.  Before, I depended upon the temporal parts of me.  Like my youthful appearance, my size 2 body, the gift of grace on a  horse - the way I looked and the way I carried myself.  I also developed character and tried to always be kind and generous among other things, but now that I don't have that young face and body, or those graces, I have had to realize that skin deep isn't good enough.  I want to be good and strong, honest and faithful, loyal and loving.........  What I cannot do physically any more, is a temptation to insecurity.  There are no approving glances or admiration at my physical skills.  Instead I am clumsy and slow.
But, do you know - this is why I have learned what is most important.  It takes courage to face the world with less than everybody else has.  When you step outside your secret world, it forces you to call up the strength you never thought you had.  It encourages you to be forgiving and patient with others, because you know you are taxing on people at times.  You learn to reject embarassment over meaningless things like inability to use a fork correctly, or hold a tea cup without trembling.  These problems force me to grow past the things that I will leave behind when I leave this earth.
I will never love PD.  But I am a different person than before.  I am a better, deeper person.  I am less interested in SELF and far more interested in you.  Life with PD has called forth my best efforts and taught me to notice the little things, because I can't do what I once thought were the big things.
I hope that one day, I will meet you..........  I wonder what you think of life with PD, or just plain life...........  And I want to say, that it takes grace - and lots of it - to move through life with a broken body.  I think you must be beautiful..........and one day I hope I will meet you.