It is a challenge to learn new tricks whether we be old people or old dogs. Let me proudly share with my readers some of the new tricks I learned as I have traveled to Geriatrica, the land where we old folks reside.
Several years ago, a dear friend taught me to stop whatever work or chore I was doing to celebrate the day’s end and watch the sunset. At first this ritual seemed kind of silly. The Western sky in Tucson is always worth a glance, but to deliberately sit down to watch a slow process? Every night?
Stopping work was hard for this overachiever to do. I wanted to finish writing a page or return a missed phone call so the task would not be left for morning. But gradually I began to not only like, but need, the ritual. It was calming to mark the end of the workday. It felt good to postpone a task for the morning … using a kind of magical thinking I tell myself that morning will come and the postponed tasks will get done.
At my age every morning is to be celebrated. In the past while I was still in bed, I ran through my tasks of the day. Sometimes I would get tired again just thinking of all I had to do. Recently, I switched gears and now use that morning waking moment to be grateful for something in my life. Today it was that my daughter will soon visit. Hooray!
Something else I’ve learned about myself: When I hurt physically, my equanimity diminishes. This week’s major hurt is a shoulder tendinitis. It would take too long to share all of the places I hurt but just last night I made a friend laugh when I said, “With apologies to Descartes: I ache, therefore I know I still am!”
One trick I have learned about elderpains is to try to rise above them. (This is different from ignoring the pain and not going to the doctor. I went to my doctor and take her advice to ice my shoulder and do my physical therapy.) But I refuse to spend my whole day dwelling in and on my pain. Sometimes I give in and lie down in bed to both ice my hurt and read something to distract me. But I still have a tiny bit of the gumption needed to ignore the damn thing and get on with my day.
Here is another new trick — this one having to do with memory. Every one of us Medicare Kids has had this experience: We think of something we must do in another room. By the time we get there we have forgotten why we are there. Not only can it take a while to remember, but sometimes the reason for the journey is totally gone.
My new trick is to sing a little ditty of why I go where. “The car keys are there! The car keys are there!” I repeat the song until the car keys are safely in my hand. It has so far worked, but I must warn you that this trick becomes more difficult when the number of items increases. “Remember the tickets, tra-la! Get hearing aid batt’ries, tra-la! Take cough drops in case, tra-la!” Sort of like “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”
I have also figured out a new trick to get rid of things I no longer use or need. I know that closets and files should be purged once in a while. In my younger days I cleaned out the closets twice a year — in spring to check that my summer clothes were wearable and, in the fall, to prepare for the cool days ahead.
But I have developed a dwindling energy problem. As every person in Geriatrica knows, we have two kinds of energy. One is the physical energy needed to get myself up and dressed for my morning walk or to do my exercises. The other is the brain energy needed to devise, start and execute a project like cleaning out my closet. With the limited energy I can summon these days for such extra tasks, it is easier, by far, to stuff clothes in an already crowded closet than to do the purging.
My trick? I am still perfecting my technique and it sounds a bit silly but I use the One Tiny Task approach. I started by counting the drawers in my bedroom, bathroom, and closet. Only 27? Maybe if I do just one a day …
I was too busy over the holidays to call this a New Year’s resolution, but I managed to start last week. I made myself a new schedule and am determined to follow it. After doing my daily email, calls and writing, I promised myself that I would do just one drawer a day. A very tiny task.
To my surprise, it is working better than I expected. I prepared for each tiny task by getting a big trash bag in which to throw stuff I no longer want or need that will to go to a charity. I also have on hand a cardboard carton in which I put labeled things that people I know might want. The first day I did two drawers! Yesterday I managed to do three: the many scarves and gloves I should have discarded years ago, purses and sweaters.
Alas, the file drawers are more challenging. My garage sports two five-drawer files containing clippings of medical and psychology articles I have used in my work. These can be recycled as I can go to Mr. Google for information I need.
But many file drawers are filled with me: papers I wrote and talks I gave. This is a bigger tiny task. It takes longer to decide whether to keep a paper than to decide I will never use that huge black leather hobo bag which I can no longer lift when it is loaded.
Enough about me. Readers: I welcome your new tricks to make our life easier for another column.
