RIDING THE BUS I used to ride the bus all the time when I was young and didn’t have a driver’s license. Now I am old and, after having cataract surgery, I can’t see well enough to drive. This is not a permanent condition - yet. I suspect it will happen eventually sometime in the not too distant future as not only my eyes, but also my reaction time and driving skills deteriorate. I guess I better get used to the fact that I won’t always be able to just hop into my car and go wherever I want to. I look at this bus riding experience as preparation for what lies ahead. A NEW ADVENTURE Like anything new it takes some effort to learn the ropes, starting with where the heck do I get onto a bus. It’s not that easy. The bus doesn’t stop at any old corner. You can’t just wave desperately at an oncoming bus and hope that it will stop and pick you up. I found that I could go on Google maps and drive virtually around my neighborhood looking for the tell tale signs of bus stops: a bench (sometimes with a cover to protect perspective riders from the rain) and/or a pole with a bus stop sign. When I was driving, bus stops were not something I was aware of; now I see the importance of their existence. Next I looked online for a bus schedule. Like the ability to drive around my neighborhood virtually, this is something I didn’t have access to in my younger days before the birth of computers. You would think it would be an improvement but it’s not exactly fool-proof. Using the maps I found online it looked like the nearest usable bus route to get downtown was a good 20 minute walk away. Later, when I got access to a paper version of the bus schedule, I discovered that there was a route I could use with a stop just a couple of blocks away. Yay! There is a God. I have a stop where I can get on the bus and a route to get me where I want to go. Does this mean I can just go and hop on the next bus. Nooooooooooo! I have to have a plan. I need to carefully calculate how long it will take me to get to the bus stop so that I am there at the same time the bus comes by. If I miss the bus it could take as long as an hour to get the next one. They don’t show the time for every stop so I have to guesstimate when I need to be at the stop and give myself plenty of time to account for my speed, the speed of the bus, and any other unforeseen issues. This is a bit like one of those math problems we did in elementary school. If a rider can walk from home “A” at two miles per hour and the bus is going 25 miles per hour on route “C”, how long will it take for both the bus and the rider to meet at bus stop “B”? RAIN AND THE WEATHER I remember waiting for a bus on a blistering winter day in Minnesota when the temperature was -30. I was in college and attempting to get to school on the other side of town. I never made it. No, I didn’t die, frozen into a statue at the bus stop. I gave up waiting and walked back home when the burning pain in the tiny bit of exposed skin on my face became unbearable. Luckily the temperature in California rarely reaches freezing, let alone thirty below. It does rain, however. A few days ago I planned to go to a birthday party using the bus to get there. I carefully checked the routes and schedules and calculated the time I needed to leave in order to make it to the bus stop as well as when and where to get a bus home. Then I checked the weather and discovered that rain was in the forecast. I tried to imagine standing at the bus stop near my house where there is no protective shelter, bundled up in my puffy water-proof winter coat with the hood pulled tightly around my face. It was not a pretty picture. Then I remembered my experience in Minnesota. Nothing could be as bad as that. I got myself ready and decided that unless it was pouring buckets I would give it a try. As it turned out it was barely drizzling and I made it to the party relatively dry. I was so proud of myself for not letting the rain dampen my spirits or my ability to get out in the world. THE PEOPLE ON THE BUS You might think the bus is a great place to meet new people. It’s not, but it is a great place to observe people. Not surprisingly, there are a lot of old people on the bus and a lot of young people, but not very many people in the middle. The middles are all happily driving their own cars. In this town there are a lot of people on bikes too, but that is not an option for me. As I sat in the section reserved for seniors and the disabled I looked around and saw the usual college students glued to their phones. There isn’t a lot of chit chatting now that the cell phone is a constant companion. Not that I’m the chit chatting type, with or without my phone. When I was in college riding the bus I remember looking out of the window a lot. I tend to wander off into my own world. Riding the bus can be a good time for contemplation and meditation. You can’t do that while driving. I did carry on a brief conversation the other day with a man sitting on the same bench waiting for the bus. He was not old or young. He had a back pack with a rolled up sleeping mat attached to the front. We exchanged a brief greeting when I sat down and then settled into waiting. He was rearranging the things in his back pack. I commented on how organized he was and then disappeared into my own mental rearrangement of the things in my brain. When I glanced back at him he had a knife in his hand. For a millisecond a tingle of fear ran through me, but he was busy reattaching his sleeping mat and cutting the cords that held it in place. A few minutes later the bus came and he graciously motioned me to board before him. WHAT I LEARNED FROM RIDING THE BUS It’s OK for me to feel afraid. This experience was a lesson in listening to my fears but not jumping to conclusions. Fear keeps me alert and safe but it’s not a reason to avoid potentially fearful situations. Like the river rafting trip I wrote about recently, my bus riding adventure has been an opportunity to do things differently. When the time comes for me to stop driving altogether, I now have some experiences that will make navigating without a car less traumatic. Of course there are other ways to get around besides the bus. My friends have been amazing about helping me get to doctor appointments but I don’t want to burden them with ordinary things when I have other ways to travel. Uber is $15 - $50 one way and the bus is only a dollar for senior citizens like me. Plus I learn more about life when I take the bus.
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And Other Death Defying FeatsAVOIDING MY FEARS Some people love scary things. I am not one of them. I don’t like horror movies where mass murderers wearing hockey masks attack innocent bystanders with a chain saw. I hate heights, especially when combined with speed, as in riding a rollercoaster. I have no desire to risk potential death by bungee jumping off of a bridge over a deep canyon. I thought that my fears kept me safe. I cautiously moved through the world making judicious decisions that kept me guarded from serious injury, not only of my physical body but also of my psyche. I carefully weighed the consequences of doing anything that seemed dangerous, where I could get hurt. This attitude kept me safe in some ways but it wasn’t much fun. I sat on the sidelines when one of my friends had a special birthday party and we all pitched in to send her on a hot air balloon ride. I stayed with the ground crew while others went up in the balloon with her. I followed in a car and watched from below when the balloon went off course and lost the wind. I witnessed the mayhem of having the balloon pulled down in an intersection in the middle of a heavily populated neighborhood. I was safe but it wasn’t as fun or exciting as actually being in the balloon. FACING MY FEARS I did let my friends talk me into going river rafting on the Snake River. At the time I agreed to do it because I didn’t have a clue what class five rapids actually were. Less than an hour into the days long trip I thought was going to die. We hit the edge of a massive whirlpool and the large inflatable raft I was riding in went vertical. I was sitting on the front edge of the raft holding on to a safety rope for dear life while I watched a giant wall of water crash down on us from above. Seconds later the raft bounced up out of the wave and careened down the river. I was eternally grateful that I was still in the raft and not floating down the river in my life vest, feet first and trying to “breath in the troughs” as we had been instructed to do if we fell out of the raft. We continued through the rapids until we found a quiet spot to pull over to the shore. It took every ounce of my being to get myself back in that raft. When the trip was over it seemed like I could do anything. I felt as if I had faced Death incarnate and survived. I found the sheer joy of having taken a risk despite my fears. Was I a whole new person? Not really. I had many more years ahead of me to slog through the trials and tribulations of life, including divorce, addiction, and the death of loved ones; but it planted a seed. I knew I did not have to be ruled by my fears. EXPLORING THE UNEXPLORED Now that I am 76 and I have a lot of adventures behind me, I am not as afraid of taking risks as I was in my younger days. My writing is filled with references to taking a leap of faith. I’m still not ready to try a physical leap and go bungee jumping, but I am willing to try new things. Actually I am ready for more than just something new. I see myself as exploring the unexplored, whatever that may mean. I am grateful for my friends who have consistently nudged me into doing things I didn’t think were possible for a cautious little old lady like myself. Changing My VisionThrough Cataract Surgery and Speed Dating
SEEING CLEARLY Having cataract surgery made me feel very vulnerable. The ability to see clearly is something I don’t want to loose. Unfortunately, even with the miracles of modern medicine, there is no guarantee that my vision won’t continue to deteriorate at the same speed as the rest of my senior body. I have been hoping that replacing my old lenses with the latest synthetic versions will give my eyes a new lease on life. The surgery on my first eye was much less traumatic than I thought it would be. It’s a bit too early to make a final judgement on how well it worked. Things are still blurry but I hope I will be able to see better soon. Some of my friends warned me that their sharper vision unfortunately enabled them to see every teeny tiny wrinkle when they looked in the mirror. They were right. The cataract induced yellowish haze I have been looking through for years seems to have obscured the signs of aging. I can now see a lot more brown spots and crevices in my face than I ever imagined existed. I guess there can be a downside to better vision. REALITY STRIKES This makes me realize that how I see myself could be somewhat of an illusion. Have I been happily under the delusion that I don’t look like a 76-year-old little old lady with cats just because my eyes don’t register what the mirror exposes? Dad always took pride in the fact that he looked younger than his numerical age. Have I been kidding myself into believing that I take after him? Will my cataract surgery change the way I see myself? Will what I see in the mirror really make a difference in my self image? I go to a discussion group on aging at the local senior center. Last week the question was “Where do I think I will I be in five years.” Five years for a senior is like five cat years; it could mean major changes in a short period of time. There is a big difference between being 76 and 81. By that time I could be a completely different person physically, and not in a good way. Change is inevitable and I really don’t have a lot of control over it, but I don’t want fear to get in the way of expanding my horizons as I get older. With that in mind I find I have been a lot more willing as an oldster to take some risks I never imagined I would do when I was younger. SEEING BEYOND THE MIRROR Speed dating was one of the risky situations I was driven to explore again. It made me see myself in a completely different way. Before I did the first speed dating event last year, I didn’t think that I was datable. I felt too old, too short, too fat. I haven’t really changed physically but I don’t see being old, short and overweight as a limit to my social life in the same way as I did then. It doesn’t take eye surgery for me to see myself in a new way, just a willingness to step out of my comfort zone. My self image is not limited by what I see in the mirror. The signs of aging are going to accumulate whether I chose to see them or not. Although my vision is still a little blurry, my newly cataract free eye makes the world look a little brighter. The colors are stronger and more vibrant and that makes my heart sing. I don’t need perfect vision to feel good about myself, just the way I am, wrinkles, brown spots, and all. |
Leslie Masona woman in search of her post-retirement future Guess what! By subscribing, you get notices about the latest Little Old Lady with Cats posts sent to your mailbox!
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(from an entry posted on 5/1/2015) “I definitely fit some of the characteristics of a little old lady with cats: Retired - check, Single - check, Like to knit - check, Have cats - check. . .I do not want to get stuck in my Little Old Lady persona, however. In fact, this blog is a risk taking experiment in exploring and redefining what I want my retired life to look like.” Categories
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