Lessons From My Elders: New & Improved Is Not Always Better

Cars on a table. Missouri. January 2006. Credit: Mzuriana.

 

My mother bought a new car when she was in her mid-80s. 

Her old car didn't have a back-up camera.

It made sense for her to buy a car with a back-up camera, yes? Safer for her! Safer for the people around her when she backed up! Right? 

Well, maybe not.

A back-up camera can make backing out of a space more treacherous unless you master the new quirks the camera requires of the driver. While you're looking down and to the right at the back-up video screen on or below your dashboard, you are not looking at what's coming at you just out of view of the back-up camera:

• A shopper who is about to walk directly behind you
• A car in the parking lot lane approaching your egress path. 

We've still got to look up and into our rearview mirror, over our shoulders to the rear, over to the right to the passenger side mirror, over to the left at our side mirror, turning to look in the rear window. All of these movements we are accustomed to do. 

Adding a new visual point to see what's in the camera screen in front of us - adds a complication in both the passage of chronological time and mental processing time.  

The lesson for me, as I peer into my aging future, is this: Sure, try the new thing out before I get rid of my old thing. Maybe newer will be better, but maybe the ease and comfort of the old will actually be safer, or if safety isn't a factor, maybe more satisfying. 

Lessons From My Elders: Exercise Bands

 

Resistance bands. Credit: Mzuriana.

When my mother, "Joanne," was in her late 80s, there was a day when she had what I can only call a system crash. Joanne acquired some sort of infection that, like a malware program, brought her down both physically and cognitively. It was scary, and after doing some hospital time, she passed additional time in a rehab center. 

It's my mother's experience at the rehab center that taught me two lessons that I have onboarded for myself: 

1. Get a set of stretchy exercise bands for strength-building at home, the same bands that the rehab center's physical therapist had Joanne use
2. Actually use them

I did buy a set of bands.

I do actually use them. Almost every day. 

I can get some benefits of a gym without having to go to a gym. The bands are inexpensive and they take up virtually no space. 

I can build and maintain strength and muscle. I'm going to need both as I continue to grow old.