Robert Keene
I would probably sum myself up in three words.
The first word that immediately comes to mind is COMPLICATED. And I say that simply because I have never been the same and have always changed. I have never been content with whatever I’ve been doing in my life and have always strived to do something even better. But that’s the creativity in me which was restricted for long periods in my life by this thing called Parkinson’s disease. But now at the ripe old age of sixty three is definitely in full bloom. It has probably lain dormant in me for quite a few years but was pushed to the back of the queue by the manual workers in my brain cell department. But now as the manual cells have slowly but surely been made redundant the creative cells in my brain are taking a more positive approach to my life and thankfully reassuring me that I still have a purpose. In fact, the creative side of me is expanding all the time because apart from being a writer, I compose original music as well and make music videos and informative documentaries about Parkinson’s disease.
The second word would be STUBBORN, and that one word is probably the one thing that has kept me going through having to live with PARKINSON’S for well over 45 years. I am probably one of the most stubborn people you will ever meet. I don’t listen to anybody, I can be antagonistic, unpredictable, extrovert difficult to be around at times, lovable, annoying, I could literally go on but the point is that I have clarity of mind now after all these years of struggling with what we have always been told is a DISEASE and after years and years of anxiety and worry and despair and any other word that you could use to describe Parkinson’s it suddenly stopped. And do you know why? I realized what Parkinson’s was? It was me.
The third and final word I use to describe myself is CREATIVE which is what I spend the majority of my time doing now as my practical abilities have started to decline and in that respect, they have been more than compensated for the skills that I have lost and feel more than happy and rewarded in working in this medium now but really if I was absolutely honest it is probably down to my determination not to give in to Parkinson’s and not feel as if there was nothing else that I was capable of doing, which is something that I would never do.
