I am five, at the foot of my parents’ bed as we watch TV, pulling back my big toe as it contorts painfully of its own will.

I am unnoticed, this is not new.

I am in my teens, my seborrheic dermatitis so inexplicably bad that my hairline is receding from both directions.

I am learning to lose my vanity, a skill that will serve me well in the years that follow.

I am in my last year of college, interning in a research lab as my hand jerks and spills a solution.

I am dismissive of this rare but recurring event, as I have bigger things to worry about.

I am trying to finish my PhD when my toes contort themselves on New Year’s Day as they often do, but this time they will not let go.

I am in pain for two and a half months, as my hand takes on a life of its own.

I am walking home that same February, when I realize that my arm no longer swings.

I am in possession of terrible knowledge, that I am twenty-six and I have Parkinson’s Disease.

I am calming myself at the mirror of the conference center restroom before my talk, noting the irony that I am anxious because I am shaking.

I am jumbled about, the latter becomes the former, dusk approaches before noon.

I am in the office of the neurologist my insurance will let me see after half a year of waiting, being told I am too young for Parkinson’s.

I am on primidone, barely dodging cars and considering the point of this effort.

I am staring at an image of my brain, having read the report saying it is normal though I see a crescent fading.

I am on clonazepam, so it may just be my narrowing peripheral vision, though my anxiety and tremor do not lessen.

I am trying to calculate how efficiently the immune cells I have engineered can kill a tumor, suddenly unable to do math in my head.

I am undone, because this was not part of the deal.

I am twenty-seven and hear from a new neurologist, who goes out on a limb and suggests that I might have a rare dopamine deficiency.

I am desperate, and nearly vomit after my first dose of carbidopa-levodopa.

I am teaching the summer interns in my new lab, gesturing at my shoelaces and unable to find the word as they laugh.

I am as helpless as I am wordless.

I am swabbing my own cheek and mailing it out, conducting my own genetic testing because at the end of all things I am up to me.

I am in lockdown, my results arrive in Spring 2020.

I am in torment, my body and mind slowing and twisting in ways I had not expected.

I am scheduling as many appointments as I can.

I am thirty-one, and I am told by two different movement disorder specialists that I have Parkinson’s.

I am relieved, no longer an impostor.

I am stunned, hearing news that day of two old friends being lost.

I am one of them.

I am panting, my arm leaden and knees crying, but I keep trying to outrun my Parkinson’s.

I am photographed crossing the finish line, and for a moment I am seen without my lifelong companion in frame.