As we age, we encounter many different life stages. Last week, I mentioned three when planning your retirement: New Freedom, New Horizons, and New Simplicity.
But there is another stage many of us will reach that isn’t as appealing, a time when the mind may be willing, but the body isn’t. Your world seems to shrink and your options appear to evaporate. Because this stage can feel terrifying and intimidating, we often ignore it and avoid preparing for that time when we must make some very difficult decisions.
In an article for Next Avenue, PBS’s website for those 50 and older, Debbie Reslock urges us to understand what we fear and take responsibility for our lives. We can then discover options that alleviate those fears, so we can make decisions that create a future we can accept and enjoy — and do so before someone else makes those decisions for us.
There are three aging decisions she thinks we should start considering:
1. Continue to drive or hang up the keys. Most of us fear the day we can no longer drive. Ever since we were young, the car was a sign of our independence: our ability to be in control of our lives. We don’t want to lose that independence and become a burden for someone else.
2. Stay in your home or move. Your home may now be more than you can handle, but it is familiar and full of memories. Do you modify your home, move into an accessible apartment, a retirement or assisted living community or move near your children?
3. Continue caring for yourself or ask for help. Struggling with daily life on your own not only presents challenges as we age but can contribute to depression and isolation. But no longer being self-reliant is hard to accept.
These are difficult decisions, and the answers are unique for everyone. But it’s not too early to be proactive. Start imagining your future life while understanding all the options and consequences, so if you do have to give something up, you can do it on your own terms. The ultimate loss of independence is when others, often well-intentioned, start making decisions for you.
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Random thought. I often read predictions of what will occur in 2030 and I often ignore them because 2030 seems so far away, until I realize it’s only five years from now!
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Brain Tease. Here are three more lateral thinking puzzles where you need to look at the situation from a different perspective and not assume anything. I’ve heard these teasers many times, but still can’t solve them. I guess I’m still stuck in my assumptions.
1. Two girls are born to the same mother, on the same day, at the same time, in the same year and yet they’re not twins. How can this be?
2. If you put a small coin into an empty wine bottle and replace the cork, how would you get the coin out of the bottle without taking out the cork or breaking the bottle?
3. A man rode into town on Monday. He stayed for three nights and then left on Monday. How come?
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The film in which a decorated war veteran was sentenced to two years on a chain gang and included one of the most memorable movie lines — which many of you remember — “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate” — is Cool Hand Luke. I received correct answers from Tina Castanares, Judy Kiser, Donna Mollet, David Liberty, Dave Lutgens, Kathy Bullack, Lana Tepfer, Rose Schulz, Doug Nelson, Jess Birge, Keith Clymer, Elaine Kirby, Nancy Higgins and Richard Shaw, who is this week’s winner of a quilt raffle ticket.
I’m sure I’ve missed several folks since I submitted this column last Thursday, but next week I’ll include everyone I missed.
When learning to read in our grade school days in the 50s, 80% of first-grade students in the United States used this common reading series. For this week’s “Remember When” question, in this reading primer, what was the name of the brother and sister that became cultural icons? And for the bonus question, what was the name of their dog? Email your answers to mcseniorcenter@gmail.com, call 541-296-4788, or send your answers with your first-grade report card.
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Until we meet again, when the icy roads come again — and they surely will — drive safely because as Paul Newman once said, “It’s useless to put on your brakes when you are upside down.”
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“If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate you are bound to wake up somebody.”
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Nutritious home-delivered and in-person meals are available at noon Monday through Friday unless otherwise noted.
Seniors of Mosier Valley (541-980-1157) — Wednesdays with music on second and fourth Wednesdays; Mt. Hood Town Hall (541-308-5997) — Tuesdays; Hood River Valley Adult Center (541-386-2060); Sherman County Senior and Community Center (541-565-3191); The Dalles Meals-on-Wheels (541-298-8333).
For meal sites in Washington, call Klickitat County Senior Services: Goldendale office (509-773-3757) or the White Salmon office (509-493-3068), and in Skamania County call Senior Services (509-427-3990).
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