January 13, 2011. This is the winter of my Discontent.

Doctors can treat the physical symptoms of Parkinson's Disease, but often don't understand the mental toll that it take on the patient.

I'm a fairly optimistic person, and this helps. But, I can't kid myself. I've read about the ravishes of the disease.

Why the depressing start? The weather. This is the winter of my discontent.

Because my balance is potentially bad. I'm stuck inside. I do have a closing today. I'm being driven door to door.

This loss of independence, which will only get worse, is difficult to treat. How do you treat somebody, who never had to "rely upon the kindness of strangers," but now must, because those days are suddenly gone? I can't be told that it will get better, because I know that it won't. Ergo, at 54, my days of independence are over. Not a minute goes by where someone can't reach me. This is both comforting and disturbing. An adult needs his privacy. Those things that are solely his. I'm not speaking of salacious matters. I'm speaking about the things everybody does that are solely our own.

I'm struggling to separate the loss of independence from the loss of individualism. I have to convince myself that they are mutually exclusive, one is not dependent upon the other.