It was six degrees outside this morning, with a wind chill factor below zero. I was scheduled to have a horseback riding lesson. It would be in the indoor ring, which has a roof and three sides but is wide open on the fourth side and unheated. So maybe it would be fifteen degrees in there. As I debated with myself about whether it really was just too cold to be outside today, I thought about past years when I bundled up to go cross country skiing in similar temperatures. “You know you warm up, and you love it. You’ll just have to make sure all of your body is covered, including your eyes,” I told myself.
Myself, still snugly under the covers in bed, didn’t buy it. I didn’t even want to get up and deal with turning the heat up in the house.
“Don’t be a wimp,” I pushed myself. “You can tough it out. It’ll be good for you. And fun. And once you’re moving, you’ll warm up. Especially with a warm horse under you.”
I got slowly out of bed, gently rubbing and stretching my back, which hurts when I first get up these days. “Riding will make it feel better,” I whispered to myself.
“Not if you stiffen up in the cold,” myself whispered back.
My riding teacher had given me an out the day before. “The horses love the cold,” she said. “They have their winter coats on, and they can’t take them off when it warms up. This is perfect weather for them. If you’re coming, don’t forget long underwear and other layers. But it just might be too cold for you. If it is, let me know. We’ll call it a weather day.”
I bristled at the “too cold for you.” My pride wouldn’t let me take the way out she had offered. She was going to be at the stables whether or not I was there. So would the many young folks who helped care for the horses. This is a therapeutic riding center with beautifully trained horses, many of whom are rescues. They are cared for in large part by volunteers who show up rain or shine, snow or heat, winter, summer, spring and fall.
“You’re not a volunteer,” I told myself. “This is something you do for yourself, and you pay them for it. Even if they called it a weather cancellation and therefore wouldn’t charge for it, you know you will pay for the missed session, so your money will still be helping them out.”
I also reminded myself that I’m at least thirty years older than most of the riders, volunteers, and staff. “That’s no excuse,” I replied.
But as I started doing my morning stretches, I thought about it. I don’t always feel it, but I am a lot older than they are. I’m very lucky. My body has stayed healthy and strong for the most part. But whereas once I felt the need to push myself to do things I felt I “should” do, I have gradually become clearer that I don’t have to do that anymore.
I don’t need to prove myself to anyone. I don’t need to pretend to be younger than I am, and I don’t need to keep up with someone who is decades younger than I am.
I emailed my teacher to cancel and got this really nice note back: No worries, I understand, it's cold out there! Stay warm and I'll see you next week.
Later in the day I was telling my friend Susan about my dilemma, and she said, “One of the things I’ve gotten from this time in my life is that I get to decide if I want to do something or not. If I don’t really want to, I frequently don’t have to. I didn’t feel that I had that option when I was younger.”
Another friend and I recently started talking about the internalized agism we all walk around with. Deciding not to go riding in frigid weather wasn’t a failure. It was a choice, just like deciding to sleep in one morning or to eat oatmeal for breakfast. When I told some friends about my “earth-shattering” decision not to go riding, I heard some funny variations on the story. One friend told me that when she was younger she felt almost morally obliged to wash her hair twice a week. “It was some ingrained hygiene belief,” she said, “that I never even thought to question. I felt like a rebel the first time I didn’t do it.” And then, she said, she started to feel a sense of freedom. “I got to choose when to wash my hair instead of doing it automatically because it was some kind of life rule.”
Another friend told me that one of the great moments of retirement was when he realized that he didn’t have to answer every email immediately. “I got to pick and choose what to answer, when to answer it, and how to answer it. What a concept!”
After canceling my lesson, I started to make myself a cup of tea and sat for a minute while waiting for the water to boil. Birds were circling around the space where my birdfeeders hang. I take them in every night to keep them from the marauding bears, raccoons, possums, and other thieves in the night. I’m guessing I needn’t have bothered last night, since everyone was probably cozy in their caves, out of the freezing cold. If they were smart. I bundled up and ran out to hang the feeders on their hooks, and within minutes my face lost all feeling. My hands and toes as well. When I got back inside, two of my fingers were white from Raynaud’s disease, which is a fairly common disorder in which fingers and toes turn white when you get cold. I don’t remember when it started, but it seems to be getting worse with age. All the more reason not to have gone horseback riding.
I took off my jacket, boots, gloves, toboggan, scarf, and extra sweatshirt. I made a cup of Teapigs, my new favorite and unfortunately expensive tea, which my daughter-in-law introduced me to when she gave me a box for Christmas, and I started a pot of soup made from all the leftovers in the fridge. I sat down to watch the birds while I drank my tea.
I had mixed feelings about missing the lesson. Even though I didn’t want to be out in the cold, I was sad not to spend time with the horses and the human friends I have made at the stable. I missed the companionship, the exercise, the activity, and the warmth, both emotional and physical, of riding.
I have noticed over the years, with clients and in my own experiences, that mixed feelings can make it harder to make or accept a decision. But it seems to me that yet another gift of age is that we are better able to tolerate mixed feelings. I knew that despite the regrets I felt about missing my lesson, I was happier being inside than I would have been out in the freezing temperatures. It was a good decision.
Photo credit: istock image iStock-1408512831Seventyfour
I’ll give you a riding lesson any time you’d like. No judgement here.
I appreciate you reminding us of our freedom to “tweak” our identities to a more comfortable place, without carrying a sense of “lostness” or inauthenticity.
We don’t have to care about anyone’s judgement, or even our own self judgement. The Third Age offers us deliverance.