Tag Archives: transitions

Strange But True

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Guest blog by Carol Boyer Peterson

--Photo by David Matos on Unsplash

Have you ever heard a story that seemed so unlikely that you thought to yourself, “that couldn’t happen”? Yet, reluctantly, most of us learn that awkward and even bizarre experiences can yield unanticipated life changes.

My recent story is about how loneliness, isolation, and physical challenges led to an opportunity to reengage with life that I could not have anticipated. Who could imagine that spending two months in a memory care facility would become a journey into vulnerability and community? But it happened.

A little over two years ago, I tripped over an errant lawn-watering spigot and broke bones in both of my hands and fractured my wrist. Surgery was required on my left hand; a cast, on my right hand/arm. At the time, I was also part of a 15-month clinical research trial for chronic leukemia, and my orthopedic surgeon could not predict how long it would take for my bones to heal.

Keep in mind that, as a participant in a clinical research trial, I learned compliance—not easy for someone who prides herself on being in control! So, I should have readily accepted the hospital’s recommended placement in a traditional rehab facility, but my instinct told me otherwise.

While I was confident that my bones would heal, I knew that what I wanted was a quiet place where I could get the care that I needed and spend time in solitude, prayer, and reflection. I chose a nearby senior living community that had skilled nursing, a faith-based organization where I had volunteered and was familiar with some of the staff. However, there were no rooms available in the rehab section. Given the urgency of finding a room and my deep conviction that I needed to be at this particular location, I agreed to a room in their memory care facility, where I joined 12 elderly people—many close to my age—who were no longer able to live independently.

My health care professionals were horrified, but I prevailed.

My sparsely furnished room was on the second floor; my view, the monastery and an adjoining college campus. When I arrived, I spent much of each day alone…and looking out the window. But the shock of being physically unable to care for myself—even eating and brushing my teeth required assistance—and living in a locked ward with 12 other souls with advanced dementia became much more than a story of an awkward and inappropriate healing environment.

Rather than stay in my room, I chose to become an active member—albeit differently dis-abled—of this community. I participated in group activities, interacted daily with other residents, ate with them, volunteered to lead a chair exercise group (I am a certified exercise coach), and more. I learned to love being with my new friends, who quickly became comfortable with my active presence in their daily routines.

I often tell people that my perspective on everything was forever changed by the experience of being my late husband Jerry’s primary caregiver for nearly a decade. As his Lewy Body Dementia progressed, I learned to slow down, be more patient, and live with a good heart because I loved him so dearly. But, it was also a time of increasing detachment from the rest of the world.

And yet, two years after Jerry passed away in the same memory care facility that was now my temporary residence, something implausible happened: I felt part of a community. In a place that clearly was not intended for someone like me, I gained a different and deeper respect for the many challenges faced by those with advanced dementia. I also became reacquainted with critical life lessons, including how essential it is to protect individual dignity, call people by their first names, and listen closely to their life stories, which often appear in fragments rather than a well-designed narrative.

So, looking back, I can now see that my story—which others might have seen as ripe for a comic review titled “Life in the Alzheimer’s Unit while needing help with the Activities of Daily Living”—turned out to have been a gift.

Spending time in a memory care facility brought me face-to-face with my own vulnerabilities in a way that I had never even considered before. And, perhaps most important of all, it got me “unstuck” from loneliness and isolation, giving me instead a renewed sense of hope, healing, and connection. At a time when things could easily have gotten much worse, they started getting better—all because of a choice that I made against the advice of pretty much everyone…a choice based on instinct, not rational thought.

Fast forward to today. My cancer is in remission, my bones are healed, and I’m beginning to find a new way forward with greater humility, courage, and a heart that is more open to others. Caring, which has long been a defining characteristic in my life, will be guided by my faith and what I started to learn in those two months. Writing and sharing stories about my life-affirming or life-changing experiences will become part of my calling to bring peace and light into the lives of others. And, even though this is not what I planned for myself when I retired early and married Jerry, I will take the curious, compassionate, spiritual, and loving version of myself—which is slowly emerging—with me on this next phase of my life journey.  

“We do not think ourselves
into new ways of living;
we live ourselves
into new ways of thinking.”
                       —Richard Rohr

Carol Boyer Peterson

I am a widow, stepmom, grandmother of 9, social scientist and retired university administrator. I love many forms of exercise from Pilates to hiking. Despite the long winters, I also love living in Northern Minnesota with a view of Lake Superior. I am blessed to have dear friends and family who are with me on my life journey.

Use It or Lose It?

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Amsterdam 1991

If you’ve followed this blog, you know that bike riding is my happy place. I’ve even posted a collage of some of my bicycles through the years. So, when I moved this summer, I, of course, took my latest bike—a step-through to accommodate my stiffening hip, no more throwing that leg over the seat, or standing on a curb to get on the bike. This new bike was a year old, gave a nice ride, but lacked the cachet of my Bianchi. I locked the it in the parking garage in my new apartment. As I wrapped the kryptonite lock around the bike, I promised it, “Don’t worry, we’ll go out for a spin as soon as I get settled.”

Two weeks later, mid-summer, I went to my parking spot and no bike. Someone had cut the lock and taken it! They also cut off the handlebar bag and threw it on the floor. DARN! That’s not exactly what I said. . . I felt violated. I examined the bikes locked by other parking stalls. Some had three locks, while others had wimpy locks. I had a kryptonite one! It wasn’t fair.

July came and went. I took a wonderful vacation and went to a retreat. In August I started the real work of moving into a new apartment, unpacking boxes and finding places for ten years of stuff.

Meanwhile, the cut cable from my bike lock hung in the garage. Every time I went to drive my car, there it was, a reminder that I had no bike, that I hadn’t been on a bike all summer, and someone had stolen from me. At the same time, I struggled with heavy boxes filled with books, slid furniture into place, and often waited for help. I just wasn’t as strong as I’d been ten years ago, when Jim and I had moved into our house.

That worried me. Would I be as strong on my bike as I’ve been in the past? “Use it or lose it,” came to mind – a saying that any older person can, perhaps reluctantly, recognize as true. I asked myself, “Karen, remember when you dropped cross-legged to the floor to sit? Or lifted that leg over the seat of the bicycle? Remember when you were more powerful than a locomotive and could leap tall buildings in a single bound?” 

“Karen, if you don’t get on a bicycle SOON, you’ll lose that, too—balance, proprioception, agility, quickness.” I set a goal of getting back in that saddle VERY SOON.

But I needed a bicycle.

Then my son-in-law showed up with one, a step through, designed to cruise the neighborhood. He’d bought it to lure my daughter into biking with him— but she detests bicycling, and this bike hung in their garage with the other four that he’s given her through the years. It’s a Townie, made by Electra, with nothing electric about it. Big and bulky, with an ample seat, and high handlebars. This bike was clearly for an older person. A grandma bike. Was he trying to tell me something?

I moved it into my apartment. I wasn’t taking any chances of having it stolen again. There it sits, an old lady bike taunting me. “Slow down, Karen, you can’t get on or off easily. You could fall.”

I wonder just how wise that goal of getting back to riding is. “Practice makes perfect,” I told myself last year when I had a hard time stopping and putting that leg down without pain in my knee and a sense that I might pitch forward. One friend said, “Karen, it’s not if you fall, it’s when you fall.”  Sobering words. But then I heard Karen Rose’s voice: “In the Netherlands, people ride until they die.” So why not me?  And this bike looks a lot like the one I rode in Amsterdam in 1983 (except for the basket…which has negative pizazz). 

Complicating everything is the advice about transitions. “When you leave something behind, that makes space for something new to come in.” Like what? A scooter? Nah, too fast. Tricycle? Heaven forbid, a wheelchair?  And I wonder “Is this true at age 80?” There are lots of losses, family homes, meaningful work, work friends, lifelong friends, spouses, grandchildren who grow up and fly the nest, stuff you treasured but no longer have room for, lifestyles. . . not to mention sitting cross-legged. Or riding a bicycle.

Lots of us are waiting for something new to come in — and getting older in the meantime. And there’s an increasing bond with others who are navigating the territory of aging. At a recent outdoor concert, I sat in a row of six women my age who’d either lost their spouse or were living with one who was ailing. Our conversations reflected our age: “Don’t put your chair there, it’ll tip and you don’t want to fall;” “I brought some grapes so we don’t have to eat that salty fatty food they’re selling;” “I have to leave by nine, I don’t like to drive when it gets dark.” That’s bonding—we’re in the same tippy boat, waiting for something new to flow in on the next tide.

Where does that leave me? I haven’t given up the dream—another happy place has to be out there. I could always buy a new bicycle, maybe an electric one or definitely one with some zip.  Or maybe I could learn to accept a free granny bicycle.  For the time being, though, I’ve found another happy place, my new deck and coffee with a piece of almond bread from the Black Walnut Bakery. For now, happy is right here.

My Skin Doesn’t Fit Anymore…

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A few weeks ago, Dan and I were with some friends who are almost as goofy as we are. As we finally started to leave (The Dog! The Dog awaits us…), we somehow fell into a joke about choosing our summer clothes to cover up parts of our bodies that we never thought about when we were younger.  That morphed into the observation that no one was rushing to do an AI image of any of us undressed…I laughed, and said, “well, my skin doesn’t fit like it used to.”  To which Dana responded, “We never had a full length mirror in our house.  I remember, about 20 years ago, coming out of the bathroom in a friend’s house and seeing myself naked for the first time in years…I rushed in to Bob crying “I am sooo sorry!  I didn’t know…”  Bob, who is pretty darn trim for someone “our age”, cracked up at the recollection.

Let me make it clear – I do not, in any way, want to be 20 or 30 again.  Or even Taylor Swift, who looks amazing at the advanced age of 35.

But when I turned 40, I must have spent the equivalent of a thousand dollars in today’s money on face creams, cleansers, exfoliating masques….not to mention eye serums that promised to eliminate the now-visible dark circles that are an inevitable part of my Scandinavian heritage….Marilyn, a very attractive older woman (probably 60?) in my church urged me to wear a bikini as long as I could, because someday I would not be caught dead in one.

Fast forward 20 years, and my oldest granddaughter, then around 9, literally gasped at the idea of a bikini for me: 

“Grandmas in bikinis – IT’S JUST NOT RIGHT!” Out of the mouths of babes…

Of course, the underlying story is how we get used to our aging bodies. In my mind, I still look like I did when I was forty or even fifty.  Or even 60.  After all, I I am lucky to fit into many of the same clothes….But, when I look at pictures ranging from 40-ish to almost 79, I don’t. 

I am recognizably the same person – but the differences are not very subtle.  I look like a grandma.  I do not wear a bikini any more.  And, when in a bathing suit, I make sure that I have a flowy coverup that goes down to my knees.  Or longer.

I recall the 50 mile bike race (in a hilly part of Wisconsin) that I managed to finish (first in my age category!) 25 years ago, as if it was yesterday. I no longer ride my bicycle.  In fact, I decided to give it away after we moved to Boulder and I confronted narrow bike lanes on the side of busy roads and mountain-bike ready dirt trails going up steep slopes that had replaced my treasured, leafy, flat bike paths around Minneapolis’ chain of lakes.  The cyclists in Boulder wear a lot of Lycra….Well, I have an old friend in England (even older than I am) who sold his car a few years ago and bikes everywhere on a collapsible/portable vehicle.  But he had long practice on hilly streets in Greece to fortify his balance and still lives much of the year in an urban center where everything he needs is close. 

Part of my decision about the bicycle is not the limitations of my body – it is me, always happiest when in a chair, looking at a mountain—not climbing it. Part of it is also caution: Breaking a major bone at my age is a lot tougher than when I was younger, and I was warned after my hip replacement that I should avoid, at all costs, falling backward in a certain way that I am not sure I fully understand but deeply fear….

But losing the freshness of early middle-age and the elasticity of older but still bike-ready Karen is coupled with an intensely held conviction that I am still a CUTE and FEISTY old lady: The changes are just part of being an ever-emergent human being. I have not been transformed like busy caterpillar, dissolving into nothing in order to break out as a butterfly with a very short shelf life. No, this is all part of the gradual shifts that, rather than transforming me, enable glimpses of how I am still becoming different. Like my pictures, I am evolving toward something that is still me, but changed in some ways. My sense of humor has improved – a lot.  I have a relationship with patience, meditation, and quiet that often makes me feel light somewhere in my heart region.  I have learned to listen to other people rather than immediately focusing on what I should be saying next.  I am not sure that I love more, but I know that I love more deeply.  Joy comes quite easily, in small delicious spurts.  It is all worth the deeper wrinkles, a slightly gimpy gait, and a firm preference for 7-year-old games that involve sitting in a chair rather than on the floor…

Am I raging against the dying of the light- heck no!  Dylan Thomas was not even 40 when he wrote those lines, and hadn’t a clue.  And if my skin—or yours – doesn’t fit as well as it used to…well, we still have a lot of fun.  And we appreciate what hiking poles were meant for. But I’m pretty sure about the bikini…

P.S. — the bikini grandma isn’t me. It was generated using AI with the terms grandma, bikini and fun!

What’s It All About

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As I reflected on turning 80, I remembered some milestones along the journey, which started when I was a pre-teen, realizing that I would die someday. I    saw a table in the Racine Journal Times that predicted how long you would live based on your age.

“I’m going to live to be 69,” I told my stepfather, Don, waving the paper in front of him. 69 sounded like forever.

          “That’s based on probability,” Don said. “And the war probably affected the calculations. I wouldn’t put too much stock in it. No one knows how long they’ll live.

          I shelved my predicted use-by-date and proceeded to live my life, although I never forgot that number. I wanted to pass it, to live to 100, at least. I once told my grandson that someone has to be the first person to live forever, and why shouldn’t that someone be me. Then, in my 69th year, as I approached my 70th birthday, about to move past my milestone, almost to taunt me, I came down with the flu, and I was SICK. I felt that if I could somehow get to my birthday, I’d get well, be okay. Whew! 70. I made it, and I felt better almost immediately. I’d dodged my first longevity bullet.

          My next bullet was 74, the age at which my mother died. I didn’t think about it—well, maybe a little. I did notice that after seventy, I developed a consciousness about age. Time seemed to speed up, too. I was no longer in those long years of childhood, sitting on the front porch in August thinking school would never start.

Friends started to die, much too young. Seventy-four came and went. But then, suddenly, I was 79, soon to be eighty…and here I am, an 80-year-old. I suspect that after 80, I should take these age goals in smaller bites—I think I’ll try for 82, the age that my husband, Jim, died.

It strikes me that there’s something competitive in setting age goals and then celebrating when I pass them. I tell myself, “Karen, it’s not a race.” And yet it feels like an accomplishment that says to the world, “She ate her broccoli; She didn’t smoke; She got 8 hours of sleep at night”. . . and so on. We are fed a daily diet of strategies to lengthen our lives.

I think about my husband, watching him struggle up the stairs, stop and catch his breath, walk to the car, where he’d hang over the door to catch his breath once again before sitting down, and then drive to LA Fitness where he walked the treadmill. Watching someone work so hard at staying alive while dying, suggests that my time could be better spent doing the things I love rather than things that might help me live longer. Maybe I’ll throw the race and have a leisurely run instead.

Not only does turning 80 make me think about what growing older means for me, it also really scares me. I can’t remember a time in my life when the future felt so ominous. My fears are larger than my own death, which is quite enough to contemplate. I worry about the world that my grandchildren will navigate: climate change and unrest throughout the world. I push these worries from my mind because my time to solve the problems of the world has passed.

In my 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and even 70’s, I was always planning the next steps in my life. But at 80, my world grows smaller, I feel myself move inward and worry about my own death. I won’t get to choose whether I die from disease or old age.  I’d like to be “one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams”,  but I have watched death up close and it can be hard.

I recently saw a condo that I thought would be a good place for me to live more simply and freely – where I could stay for a long time. I couldn’t sleep because I was so excited thinking how I would update it, where I’d put my furniture, and how I’d afford owning two domiciles while my house—where I have lived with Jim for over a decade—was sold. It was classic Karen—when life gets stressful—leave it behind—MOVE on. . . and out. Then I realized that that has never really worked.  There is no moving away from what scares me this time.

And so here I am, 80, healthy, riding my bike around the beautiful Minneapolis lakes, renovating my lower-level living space, planning trips, curious about the future — but reluctant to plan too much. What does that leave me? Something plenty big. Life, life itself, the basics.

Winter is here in Minnesota, the wind cuts, the roads and sidewalks are slippery, we retreat indoors. Walking with my daughter outside today we started on the “I hate winter” mantra. “Stop!” I said. “I promised myself to stop saying that all winter long. It doesn’t make winter any easier, and it keeps me from seeing the beauty in winter.”

And I want to see the beauty in all that is around me, in a way I have never wanted to before. I want to revel in the humdrum of daily life, a good book, my annoying cats who hound me when I’m at the computer, a broken valve on the boiler, Apple TV when I’m tired, and a hot water bottle on my feet at night—all of which happened this first week of being 80, all of which I’m grateful for having lived.