I’m listening to an episode of Invisibilia now. It’s called “An Unlikely Superpower.” This lady called Joy had a wonderful sense of smell. Her husband had one scent which changed for the worse so she asked him to shower. It used to annoy Les, her husband.

His character also started to change. Not just the smell but also his moods. He also became much less tolerant. So many of his qualities started to bleed away. She became a completely different guy. She felt like she was living with someone completely different. He became this obnoxious dude, totally transforming from his formerly quiet demeanor.

“Les wasn’t my Les anymore,” she says. She ached for his humor, his kindness, his sense of play. She increasingly began to feel that she was living with another person. She didn’t know what to do anymore. And then she found out that he had Parkinson’s disease.

All of a sudden, the future they had planned went through the window, replaced by a new, much bleaker future. Their fate had been transformed from something to be lived, to something to be survived. How do you come to terms with such a heavy change? These are the questions Joy had to think about everyday. These are the issues that were on her mind going to bed and waking up.

Every. Single. Day.

She lived in Scotland.