Visualeyes 13

As I stood at a bus stop today, patiently waiting for the bus, I realized a few things:

• I am now, literally, a "bag lady"- pack on my back and after shopping,a sack or 2 in hand
• I think my ancestral "peasant stock" is coming in handy as I shlep bags from place to place
• Waiting for a bus is MUCH  easier when you're yakking on the phone with someone!

I've actually adapted rather easily, all things considered and minus a few bad days, to being car-less and being a mass transit-er. And while a few people have said good job, I'm proud of you, mostly I'm proud of myself. I thought I might hit a brick wall, so to speak, when the driving phase of my life ended, but I'm doing ok. Someone suggested to me that I adopt the "large metropolis mentality", where using public transportation reigns supreme and carrying shopping bags is a daily occurrence. Just pretend, she said, you're in New York, or Chicago, or Boston. It's a bit of a stretch of the imagination, but writers are supposed to do that.

Pretending you are cosmopolitan is a whole lot easier than the issue I'm dealing with now I had my first orientation and mobility  (O and M) training session this week. That means, in plain terms, learning to walk using a white cane. When the instructor measured me for the correct size cane and then handed me a cane to use, it felt almost like someone giving me a prosthetic leg. I can only imagine how weird it must feel standing on a leg that isn't really yours but being expected to adjust to it as if it's a part of your body. Learning to use a cane properly equates to the same thing for me.

Our first exercise was just learning how to hold it correctly- the where you grip it, the where you position it on your body frame- and the sweeping motion back and forth. The next step is to walk around the office space trying it out. So we are preparing to leave the instructor's cubicle and she's telling me to sweep back and forth, hitting the cane against the opening walls of the cubicle smack....smack....smack... back and forth, side to side. She's watching my technique, I'm just thinking oh crap, can I possibly make any MORE noise so people will notice me???? I just wanted to drop it and run. She tells me that the noise is ok because everyone there knows what's happening.........I just want to run. It's that emotional component that I'm struggling to overcome.

I had decided if they had canes to purchase, I'd buy one. I wouldn't use it, but I'd buy it. Lots of people in the RP Support Group have said that they bought a cane, put it in the drawer, and didn't use it for many months. [of course we're talking about a collapsible cane] That's what I thought I would do. When I found out that they didn't sell them, you had to order them, I was so relieved. Then my instructor offered to loan the cane to me until our next session, in 2 weeks. I'm thinking you want me to practice with it out in public????  I  said, no thanks, I probably won't have time to practice with it. The equvalent of drop it and run.


I am feeling so tentative and a little fragile about using this cane. I know it will be helpful for me, currently, at night. I already "feel" blind at night. But daytime, well I still feel like a sighted person- ok maybe a  limited sighted person who bumps into stuff sometimes. But I feel sighted and using a white cane makes me feel blind. What's worse, it makes me LOOK blind. How do I get over that? See, it's that emotional component again.

My next session will be at my house. I asked my instructor to bring a blindfold. During O and M, depending on what aspect one is working on, it can sometimes be helpful to "eliminate" all sight so you don't rely on it as a crutch. I figured I'm comfortable enough with my condo complex that I can try it blindfolded. But truthfully, I think it has more to do with not seeing others watching me learn to use a cane because it embarrasses me.

How long, I wonder, will I go on feeling uncomfortable using a cane. Will seeing me use one bother or effect my friends and family? I just don't know but I'm not really wanting to find out yet.

Visualeyes 3

This week I was determined to avoid the car temptation and use the bus. I decided to try a trip to a neighborhood shopping center with Borders, Ulta, and WalMart. Here's the process: look up the bus  timetable, check,compare it to the second bus timetable that you also have to take, check, go back to the first timetable to be sure you're reading the Monday-Friday schedule, not the Saturday or Sunday timetable (which are both different from the rest of the week), check. Be sure the backpack has everything you need- wallet, keys, visor for walking in the sun, phone, bus schedules, water to drink, some almonds in case you miss meal time so the blood sugar doesn't get wacky, kleenex, hand sanitizer, a soduko book to keep from getting bored while waiting for the bus (which doesn't always show up at the time listed on the schedule), and of course, enough room to carry whatever you buy on your shopping adventure. "Shopping adventure"- see I'm trying to make it sound positive and fun. (Not fooling myself yet!) Now comes the 10 minute walk, all uphill, to get to the bus stop then stand around for 20 minutes until the bus shows up. Okay, I got the right bus and when I got on, I clarified where I picked up the next bus. Turns out when the 132 reaches the "end of its route," it just turns into the 150 bus. So why don't they just call it the 150 bus the whole time???? Okay, calm down, public transit isn't always handled efficiently.

I get to the shopping center, wait 10 minutes for the light to change on the major busy street in order to really get to the shopping center. Walk, walk, walk with 5-6 pound backpack through the stores, constantly taking the pack off (so I don't knock things off shelves) and back on between stores. Buy shampoo and conditioner + the free gift they threw in, now the pack is 7-8 pounds. Off to WalMart (whew, the pack can go in the cart) and buy several things, pack is up to 10 pounds now! The day started out coolish but the temp warmed up so the sweatshirt has to go in the pack too. Approaching 12 pounds and don't kid yourself,  just because you're drinking that water you brought along, the pack is NOT getting lighter!

As I leave the WalMart, I figured I better check the timetable to see when the bus will arrive, because of course, I still have to locate the bus stop. That's what happens every blessed time you go someplace new on the bus, you have to find a new stop. Timetable says the bus arrives at 2:05 and the watch said it's 1:40. So I start fast-walking across the vast parking lot to get back to the major street. Of course the path I take is all uphill and the pack now weighs double what it weighed when I left home! Made it to the bus stop and noticed there were 2 other paths, on flat parking lot, that I could have taken and then just climbed 8 or 9 stairs to land right next to the stop. (I'll know the next time!) Pull out the bus schedule, just to be sure ( a tad compulsive still) and lo and behold, I had checked the Sunday schedule and the correct time for the bus to stop was an additional 30 minutes! Wait, wait, wait... and I'm thinking of all the things I could have done if I only had taken the car!!!! Heavy sigh.....

Catch the bus, do the route in reverse, locate my stop in time, pull the cord, smile at the driver and thank him and then have the 10 minute walk back home, with the doubled weight pack. BUT, it's now downhill!!!! As I'm rounding the corner to walk into my condo complex, I called my sister. I told her I was proud of myself for accomplishing the day's trek but TOTALLY exhausted. My ever-positive psychologist sister  tells me, "Just think how fit you're going to get, and just think how 'green' you're becoming by decreasing your carbon footprint!" I replied,: "And you think either of those  things compensate for having to give up driving??? I don't think so!" At this point she suggested I might consider an attitude adjustment. I replied that I was doing what I had to do but I hated it and was going kicking and screaming all the way. This is still new to me and obviously, I'm still cranky about it. But she's right, an attitude adjustment might help. My thoughts on that... hell no! Not ready for that yet. I'm not done being mad about this. Maybe next week.

Visualeyes 2

If you had the choice between pouring over a bus schedule for departure times to coordinate your errands for the day or jumping into a car and driving to do the errands, which would you pick? That's a no-brainer, right? I've got to say that even though I know I need to perfect my bus/train skills, I still find myself jumping into the car. There's a voice in my head that says, "Hey what are you doing? You shouldn't be driving!" but another voice, the one that likes to rationalize things and make excuses for why it's okay to do something, says: "But you can't carry this furniture and all this other stuff to Goodwill by going on the bus. So just make this quick trip, using side streets, not the expressway, and it will be alright." It makes sense to me. Yeah, right.

The problem is I could rationalize just about anything as a way to use the car because letting go of it is really hard. Harder than I imagined and I was imagining it to be pretty awful. I realized I wasn't handling this transition well after I bought 2 bags of Halloween candy [no kids in my complex and never had a treater in 15 years living here] and ate it all.  Not in one day of course, but it sure didn't help the blood sugar any.)  Hmmm... sounds like a touch of depression to me. Funny how that can creep up on you.

So what should I do about this? I can't change the fact that the driving needs to stop. But I can change the temptation of having the car calling to me. I have to get rid of my car. Geez, the idea of that makes me shudder yet I know myself well enough that eliminating temptation isn't a gradual thing. I just have to make a complete break. Oh-oh, there goes that voice in my head pleading, "No, you haven't been without a car of your own for over 30 years!" [Now before you start calculating and thinking I can't add correctly you should know that I got my first car at age 21.]  I have a nephew going off to college next year and I thought I could give him my car. My sister and I planned to drive the car up to Massachusetts in June when her kids were out of school. That means the temptation sits in front of me for 8 months. I now know that I can't face it that long. Since my sister can't come get the car now and there is always the possibility of driving through snow once you pass October and head to the North, I started exploring auto carriers. That's worth a blog post of its own! Then to add temptation of a different sort, a friend told me that she and her husband would like to buy my car because it is newerthan hers and has less miles. That would solve the problem of transporting the car and get it out of my sight. But I did offer to family first. A dilemma that I have to mull over. Care to share your thoughts with me on what you would do?

Visualeyes 1

This week has been challenging yet successful. I ventured out on the MARTA bus and train- with an encouraging friend- to see if I could make it to several doctors' offices all located in the same medical center. Amazingly I did!. The only down side was the amount of time it took. If I drove there, it would take 15-20 mins. Between waiting for buses, then the train, walking from the train station over to the actual building...90 mins. It was a smack-you-in-the-face reminder that going places will probably require 3x the amount of time. [heavy sigh...] I've always been a multitasker. Well you had to be when you taught 25-30 young children.And it wasn't uncommon for me to plan out 6 errands in one trip and then remember 2 more that could be added on. That time is done. While my planning skills will still be useful, they will now spread the activities over days because there's just not enough daylight hours this time of year for me to pack in the errands and have to wait for buses or trains.

I should be glad I don't have to rush around anymore. After all, I AM retired. Nah. The reality is that I'm not that former Type A personality because I can't be, not because I chose to be. I want to open the window and scream "It's not fair! I don't want to give up my independence!" (I know, shades of the movie Network.) But who said life is fair? And for that matter, who said I had to give up my independence? Yes, I can no longer be SPONTANEOUSLY independent; now I have to plan my activities. But if I'm still designing and selling my jewelry, still doing my grocery shopping, still going to work out, still writing my books, still meeting friends for lunch or dinner, am I any less independent? Hell no!! So the trick is to change my mind set, to accept that planned independence is as good as spontaneous independence. Yeah, that's a work in progress. But being the stubborn woman that I am, I'll get there. (Sooner rather than later, I hope!)