My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations.

A cultura judaica, eu começava a entender, colocava uma estrutura e um ritual em volta dessa transição [da infância para a vida adulta], instruindo essas formas de vida emergentes a reconhecer e aceitar suas responsabilidades consigo mesmo, com suas famílias e com os outros. Elas são aclamadas e celebradas bem quando estão mais suscetíveis a se sentir indesejadas e incompreendidas. (p. 180)

When life takes away, something of greater value is always given in return.

After all that I'd been through, after all that I'd learned and all that I'd been given, I was going to do what I had been doing every day for the last few years now: just show up and do the best that I could do with whatever lay in front of me.

To be brutally honest, for much of that time, I was the only person in the world with Parkinson's. Of course, I mean that in the abstract. I had become acutely aware of people around me who appears to have the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, but as long as they didn't identify with me, I was in no rush to identify with them. My situation allowed, if not complete denial, at least a thick padding of insulation.

Going public was a difficult decision, and I had misgivings. My subjective experience was now an objective fact in the wider world. It didn't belong to just me anymore - though I quickly learned that it hadn't belonged to just me in the first place. More than a million Americans and their families were going through the same thing; some openly, some in secret due to concerns of being misunderstood and marginalized.

Frankly, my height or lack thereof never bothered me much. Although there is no doubt that it has contributed to a certain mental toughness. I've made the most of the head start one gains from being underestimated.

The only unavailable choice was whether or not to have Parkinson's. Everything else was up to me.

The reflected version of myself, wet, shaking, rumpled, pinched and slightly stooped, would be alarming were it not for the self-satisfied expression pasted across my face. I would ask the obvious question, "What are you smiling about?" but I already know the answer: "It just gets better from here".