When Was the Last Time You Filled Your Own Gas Tank?
A few months ago, I filled the gas tank in my car for the first time in many years. For most of my married life, that had been my husband’s job, one of the odd and idiosyncratic divisions of labor that I often hear about when I’m doing therapy with couples who have been together for a long time. I’m perfectly capable of pumping gas, but I’m usually driving, and he’s in charge of navigation and gas. The navigation part makes sense – I can’t read a map and frequently get lost even with my GPS to guide me – but why he was in charge of the gas is an unknown.
However, with his bad arthritis and difficulties balancing, we’ve agreed that it’s better if I take on that task. The first time I did it, I felt like an idiot. On the surface, it seemed so simple. Put the credit card into the card slot, push the button for the octane level I wanted, and start fueling. But so many other things were going on in my brain, like trying to remember to put my credit card away so that later I wasn’t madly searching for it, and responding to the machine’s demand to know if I wanted a receipt or not, that I felt like I didn’t have enough hands or bandwidth to accomplish the task.
After a couple of weeks, I had the whole procedure under control and couldn’t quite figure out why it had me so discombobulated in the beginning. But I think now that it was a perfect metaphor for many of the changes that happen as we age. For example, I have osteoporosis, and for years my (very young) physicians have been asking about throw rugs and other potential fall risks in my home. I’m physically active and strong and have always smiled and told them politely that I am very careful, while ignoring their concerns. But after my husband’s fall this past spring, I am much more conscious of fall risks for myself as well as for him. I don’t want to be someone who worries about falling all the time, but I am, I now realize, someone who needs to careful about where I place my feet.
I don’t want to take after my aunt, who, at 91, still believed she could climb on a stepstool to find a pocketbook in the back of her closet and ended up on the floor, where she remained for several hours because she was too stubborn to keep her medical alert button close at hand. But I have also always admired that stubbornness in her, which I think I inherited. She kept going, even when things were hard. And that’s what I intend to do.
But I want to do it intelligently, without putting myself in unnecessary danger. And I think pushing myself to move outside my comfort zone, to take on even small tasks that I haven’t dealt with before, is one way to keep growing even as I take new and sometimes unwanted precautions to keep myself safe.
I was recently speaking with a friend about some of the things we’ve given up, sometimes without even realizing it. Her husband has been unwell for longer than mine, and she said one of the things she missed was having friends over to dinner. “I haven’t even put that into words before,” she said. “I just stopped doing it somewhere along the way.”
Another, who used to play the piano regularly, told me that she had stopped practicing because the combination of arthritis in her fingers and a cataract in her eye had made it harder for her to play. “I don’t like the way my music sounds anymore,” she told me.
I wondered what would happen if we challenged ourselves to take on a new project we were pretty sure we were capable of accomplishing, but have avoided for reasons we can’t quite articulate. The friend who was no longer hosting dinner parties immediately said, “I hadn’t even thought about it, but I could have some friends over for wine and cheese. I might attempt a few interesting appetizers and maybe a cocktail. Or not. I can play all of that by ear.”
She was onto something very important: choose an activity that’s a challenge but keep it manageable. Perhaps after she had successfully held a simple wine and cheese get together, she could do it again with more complex foods. Or not.
My friend who was no longer getting joy from her piano said, “I’ve been thinking about joining a singing group. I don’t have a very good voice, but I can harmonize and stay in key.” She had not turned that thought into action, however, for a number of reasons. “I’m shy,” she told me. “And I am afraid I won’t be good enough.”
Anxiety about how we’ll be received by others can deter many of us from taking on new, manageable and potentially life-affirming activities. One of the great things about being older is that once we recognize what’s stopping us, we can often talk ourselves out of these anxieties more easily than we could when we were younger. I mean really, who cares if you don’t sound like Beverly Sills? It’s an amateur singing group, not a job with the New York City Opera. And if you don’t make the grade? Well, you can congratulate yourself for trying and take some singing lessons in order to try again.
My own challenge was to outfit my very grubby ten-year-old car with new seat covers. I had been thinking about it for ages, but I felt overwhelmed by the task of picking out covers and then trying to install them. I asked my husband for help making a choice about what would look right in our car and what seemed most manageable for a self-installation project. At first he was no help at all. “This isn’t something you should be doing,” he said several times. When I insisted that I was going to try, with or without his input, he helped me make a selection but continued to suggest people who could put the covers on for me. “Sweetheart,” he said, “you’re an incredible woman, but I just don’t think this is in your wheelhouse.”
It wasn’t, of course, but have I said that I’m also very stubborn? I got the seat covers, watched the YouTube instructions on how to install them, and got them on. And when my husband saw what I had done, he said, “I like these!!! And I’m just amazed.”
I loved his response. But even more, I loved my own sense of accomplishment. And that’s the point: we have to be smart about our challenges. I saw many elegant car seat covers that I would love to have purchased, but that would have been far more complicated and difficult to install. And I would have ended up frustrated and sure that aging was taking away everything from me.
The more we can do things that are outside our wheelhouse but within our capabilities, however, the stronger, more competent, and more self-confident we can feel as we travel through this new, uncharted territory of aging.
Photo credit: 123RF stock image #194470045 Photographer zelmabrezinska
My late husband always got gas for the car. The first time I did it after he died was quite traumatic. I was required to first scan my BJs membership card and then insert my credit card. I couldn’t figure out how to scan the membership card and as I looked at the line of cars waiting, I felt myself panicking. The lovely young woman behind me came to my aid. I was sure she saw me as a bumbling old woman so I blurted out “my husband just died and he always got the gas! Not one of my proudest moments.
I loved this, especially the suggestions of how to shift one’s expectations, perhaps ever so slightly. And the empowerment one can feel from taking on a new task!