Losing Our Powers

I keep coming up against the human issue of how, as we get older, we lose powers we once took for granted. I asked a friend to read a manuscript from another friend, and, after a few weeks, the first woman came to me and said that she wasn’t going to be able to do it. Her eyesight is no longer strong enough. She was embarrassed, but there was no reason for embarrassment. It is a natural process of attrition.

This comes up in so many different ways. People are living longer now. As we get on in life, we find that some tasks we used to accomplish with no difficulty are suddenly beyond us.

Opening jars, for instance. I don’t have the kind of strength I used to have in my hands, and getting the top off a jar of olives or pasta sauce or chutney can sometimes seem impossible. I live with another woman in her eighties, and a few weeks ago when neither of us could open a jar of Trader Joe’s Cowboy Caviar, she suggested that I take the jar with me on my next walk and ask the help of the first strong man I encountered. As it turned out, I didn’t need to do this—but I would have.

Besides muscle power, we lose physical energy. Over time, our heart rate naturally decreases, and our cells run less efficiently—which means that we become fatigued much more easily. I never used to think of myself as a powerhouse, but I always had enough energy to do whatever I wanted to do—and I could work late into the night with no apparent consequences. Now, I have to choose; I have to set priorities for what I’m going to get done. I cannot do it all.

My most recent and, for me, most glaring loss of power has had to do with digestion. That’s the most civilized way of describing what’s been happening. A couple of times recently in the early morning hours I haven’t “made it” to the toilet in time.

This, in itself, has been unpleasant, but then I started wondering what would happen if I should lose the ability to walk. What would I do then? Right now, I can clean up after myself. What if I couldn’t?

Last week I visited a ninety-eight-year-old friend in an assisted living facility, and she told me that because she’s blind and nearly deaf, her care givers don’t like responding to her when she summons them by pushing a button. “It takes them longer to deal with me,” she said, “so they don’t like to come.”

I had to wonder how care givers might feel about dealing with the problems I’ve been having. I doubt that it would endear me to them.

When I mentioned my problem to another friend, she was quite matter-of-fact. She said, “You have to put procedures in place.” So, last night, I instigated a couple of strong, corrective steps.

First, I left the door to the bathroom wide open. I’ve never found the view of a toilet uplifting or beautiful, but when fast access is important, leaving the door open is a matter of practicality.

Second, at no point last night did I lay in bed in a half-dream state. The moment I woke up, I would get up and go into the bathroom. This means that I got up at 12:30, at 1:30, at 3:30, and at 5:00. But it also means that two of those times, when I had to use the toilet, I was right there

I’m sorry to be posting something so very earthy and mundane, but I think that getting over our feelings of humiliation over our natural losses of power is vital for us. Finding solutions for these problems can make a difference in the way we experience our final years.

A neighbor of mine recently bought a portable composting toilet. Perhaps that’s my solution. I could take it with me wherever I went. It could even sit beside my bed.

This topic reminds me of an experience I had a couple of years ago when I was picking up a new prescription at a drug store and decided, with some sense of discomfiture, to try a product called Poise, a panty-liner designed to help with another usually unmentionable problem—dribbles between visits to the bathroom. When I went to pay, the young woman behind the counter said, “This is new for you, and if you’d like, the druggist can give you instructions on how to use it.”

I was surprised. I told her, “I think I’ll be able to figure it out on my own.” Then, I realized that she wasn’t talking about the Poise; she was talking about the new prescription—and I started to laugh. When I explained why I was laughing, the young woman started laughing too.

Ultimately, I feel this has got to be our approach. We have to find a way to laugh about these things. And probably to take them as they come. There isn’t much benefit in looking too far ahead.