Have I oversold optimism as a panacea, commodified hope? Have I been an honest broker with the Parkinson’s community? The understanding I’ve reached with Parkinson’s is sincere, but the expression of it risks being glib. I have made peace with the disease, and I might have presumed that others had, too. In telling other patients, “Chin up! It will be okay!” did I look to them to validate my optimism? Is it because I needed to believe it myself? Things don’t always turn out. Sometimes things turn shitty. I have to tell people the whole deal.
