Ever hear of a ‘preemptive pee’? Neither had I. It’s a plan I’ve adopted as I slide downhill to being seventy. I exercise this new skill on long road trips. We stop at every rest area along the way, whether I feel the need or not. “Have to go?” my husband asks. “Nope,” is my usual response. “Give it a try,” he suggests. “Make it a preemptive pee.” What it is meant to prevent is the need to go to the bathroom before the next rest area, which is usually just a half-hour down the road. It works. It is one of the things I’m learning as I navigate my senior years. Here are a couple of others.
Your body doesn’t keep up with your mind.
My mind is doing fine, although my retrieval skills are sometimes lacking. If I cannot answer Jeopardy questions quite as fast as I used to, I’m still coherent enough to complete the New York Times crossword every day. Well, almost every day. In ink. (I cannot think in pencil.)
Where I notice some deficiency is more physical than mental. Despite my lack of exercise in every decade leading up to my sixties, my body is not in bad shape. Or, rather, my shape may be bad but all my organs are still fully functioning. At sixty-two I joined a gym for the first time in my life.
A twenty-something filly with boundless enthusiasm guided me on a tour of the facility. “Let’s see what you can do on the treadmill,” she suggested. “Watch me.” Bounding up onto the machine, she was quickly running like the team in Chariots of Fire. “See,” she hollered as she beamed down at me, standing aghast beside the treadmill. “It’s not difficult.”
Maybe not for her. But this old body wasn’t buying it. “I think I’ll need to build up to that,” I meekly told her. “Let’s try something else.”
A few body-toning machines pushed my arms and legs in angles I couldn’t even identify. Then I spotted a recumbent bike. “Now, that’s something I can handle,” I told Ms. Perky.
Four years later I go to the gym three days a week. Some treadmill, a couple of leg strengthening apparatus and my friend, the recumbent bike, a piece of equipment I’m sure was designed for us old folk.
I should have listened to my mother
My mother was right about many things. For example, weight. I reached a low of 113 lbs. for about five minutes when I was forty-one. Now I’m at a number that I will share with no one. My weight has yo-yo’d up and down so often it’s a wonder I can stand straight up at all. I never understood that, when it comes to weight, biology is destiny. My mother was evidence of that. She claimed she ate very little and couldn’t understand why she never lost weight. I didn’t believe her. “Exactly what do you eat?” I smugly asked. “A little tuna salad, some skinless chicken, maybe a yogurt,” she’d say, holding her head high with pride of self-denial. I’d go home thinking Impossible….she’s got to be eating more than that.
Now I’m seven years younger than my mother was when she died. I don’t eat that much on a daily basis. An English muffin, some skinless chicken, maybe a yogurt. And remember that gym I go to three times a week? I still sometimes gain weight, but rarely lose. My mother was right, again.
She lived in Manhattan, 75 miles south of my house. I drove her home after each of her visits. Before we got into the car, she refrained from taking her water pill in anticipation of the long drive. But she never, ever made it. Invariably we had to stop and find a restroom at least twice each drive. This just didn’t compute for me. “You didn’t take the water pill and you still have to go to the bathroom?” This woman could not take an hour-and-a-half drive without having to pee?
Lucky for me. Because as I grew older and drove to Manhattan for staff meetings, I knew where all the bathrooms were. Just like my mother, I couldn’t make it to the City without having to stop. But I employed the Preemptive Pee method. I’m proud to say that I only had to go once each way.
So, apologies to my mother, who I know is laughing in heaven.