At some point as you age you realize that you can no longer do what you could when you were younger. It might be something major or it could be just a minor thing – like climbing up on a chair to reach a high cupboard.
I find this is one of the hardest things about getting old. I can’t do what I want to do. It’s not for lack of trying.
So here I am at a point where I have to decide whether I just give it up or if I will keep on trying.
One thing I am sure of – or a few things I am sure of – I am not giving up gardening, or rug hooking or chocolate making or walking or even vacuuming.
Having decided that I will absolutely not give those things up, I now have to decide how I can manage to do them.
This is the difference between acceptance and defeat. Defeat is giving up and not doing things you love to do. Acceptance is deciding you will still do it, but you will have to modify how you do it. For instance, I will no longer be able to dip 200 lbs of chocolates. I can still dip, but not nearly as much. So, sad times for sure, to put the large chocolate making endeavour behind me. I just had to accept that if I wanted to continue doing it, I was going to have to scale back. So I did. I will also say that in an act of pure faith, I bought a few years worth of chocolate supplies.
Aging takes a lot away from us. I hate that.
It is self-defeating to compare what we can do as a senior to what we could do when we were younger. Our bodies and minds change so it’s only reasonable to remind ourselves that we definitely cannot do what we used to easily be able to do.
Years ago an incident in a little independent grocery store brought home to me just how resilient and adaptable seniors are. I was probably in my early 30’s at the time. I had popped into the little store to pick up something I needed (it was right across the street from where I worked at the time). There was an older lady doing her weekly grocery shopping. She had a cart. In her hand she had a list written in big letters with black magic marker. She was also holding a magnifying glass. She asked me if I could find something for her. She could read her list but she couldn’t read package labels.
I was struck by just how determined she was to do her own grocery shopping. She could have called the list in and had the store pack it up for her. She did not want to do that. She asked me to point out where things were so she could grab them and put them in her cart. I offered to find all the things on her list and she said no, she just need helping finding a couple of things.
Fiercely independent and unwilling to give up the mundane task of grocery shopping for herself. She adapted with a modified grocery list, a magnifying glass and asking for help when she needed it.
Honestly, that incident happened over 40 years ago and it has stuck with me all these years.
This was a woman who was definitely not going to admit defeat and call her order in. I’m sure she eventually had to but she had managed to adapt to her failing eyesight.
Accept the limitation or give up and phone it in.
More and more as we age we are faced with these decisions. It really sucks.
I believe you never truly have to give up what you love doing. My husband can no longer golf because his knees are bad. He loved to golf. So, he stays involved by helping out the grandsons. He has gone from player to coach. My oldest grandson will text him from the driving range, “why I am pulling everything left?”
My husband was a golfer with a good short game and he was good at putting too. Guess what – grandson has a great short game and is a pretty good putter too. Coincidence? I think not.
There’s also the intervention factor to consider. Is your bad back fixable? Or have you resigned yourself to living with a bad back and limiting what you can do. I’m here to tell you, that’s not living. If you can fix it or mitigate it, you should.
Right now I am dealing with a nasty shoulder issue. Cortisone shots and exercises help. I can’t get cortisone shots for the rest of my life (I’m not that old yet!) so I want to get it fixed. I know it won’t be easy – but seriously, do I really want to spend another 10 or 15 years not being able to do even minor things without pain? No, I don’t.
I guess what I am trying to say is that, yes, things get harder as we get older. That doesn’t mean we should quit doing them. We have a lot of knowledge and life experience that we can pass on – like the golf thing or the chocolate thing. I can’t do what I used to do, but I can teach people how to do it. I am also writing a book on chocolate and candy making – a project waaay bigger than I anticipated. Thankfully I’m getting lots of help with it.
We can help ourselves. Be active, use our brains. Don’t give up.
I have a friend (10 years older than I am) who tells me “Sometimes I don’t really like doing something but I do it because I know I should.” She won every game but one at Mah Jong this week, so I think she might be on to something.
