Shhhh… Don’t Say The P-Word!

It feels like I might be missing something in life. It can’t be a mid-life crisis. I am too young for that. Maybe it’s because I am not married, or because I don’t have children… Ok, a furry four-legged child… sorry Crash! It’s like that feeling when you hold a baby (which is very rare for me seeing as I fear I might crush their tiny unformed bones or even worse, their heads might fall off). But as you hold that little jellybean, bells and whistles go off in your brain, when you realize that there is a purpose in life.

Since I will not be having a jellybean in my life, sometimes I feel that something is missing. That there might be more to life than I am experiencing and I want to fill that void, but I am unsure how. Then it came to me, I will go on an adventure to find myself. Now, yes, I know who I am. I like who I am. But who are we when we strip off the identities that we have created or ones that have been placed on us?

There is not a day in my life that the word Parkinson’s does come flying out of my face hole. I guess is should be Parkinsons…? That’s a trick question that I will leave up to the grammar Gods.   Digressing. It doesn’t bother me. I embrace that I have Parkinson’s disease. I am the Perky Parkie. It is my identity. If I’m not working with people with PD, then I am being challenge by my personal symptoms of the disease. I am Parkinson’s 24/7.

Now imagine a camp in the Redwood Forest of Northern California. A place where your name isn’t important, your job doesn’t matter and your age is forgotten. A place where all digital devices disappear, you’re stripped of everything that connects you to the real world. Off the grid, shall we say? Now you’re left exposed, leaving you present and aware of nature and those around you. Kind of like an adult summer camp. That place is Camp Grounded: A Digital Detox.

I have decided to take this adventure because I am curious to see who I am under the Parkinson’s disease veil. PD is such a huge part of my life, but where is the little girl underneath it? Now my challenge, can I go 4 days at camp without using the P-word? Even worse… can I go 4 days without eating Frozen Yogurt?

Pictures and video from campgrounded.org website