In My Mid-80s, I Have Finally Stopped Canceling Plans

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In my friend group, I am famous for being the person most likely to cancel appointments. I drop out if there is the smallest threat of rain. If flu is in the news, our date is off. If a cut on my pinkie is throbbing, I’m out. If my tummy is not quite right, don’t expect me to be there.

I have always been the Empress of Excuses, the High Priestess of Pullout and the Queen of Retreat.

However, now that I have passed my 85^th birthday, I realize that being in tiptop shape physically, without a single pain or problem — and since climate change has made weather wildly unpredictable — “optimal conditions” no longer exist. So, if I am ever going to get out the door at all, it is about time for me to forgo fears of illness or storms and stand by my plans.

From now on, I will accept invitations with the intention of keeping them, instead of starting out in a maybe-mode right from the beginning. I will no longer have to be 100 percent to go to the party.

I am taking notes from a lot of hearty souls I know who easily get out there and enjoy life, despite arthritis flare-ups, stressful road conditions or sudden sadness. I call them my motivational muses. Among them are:

A woman who, post-stroke, can no longer drive but manages to catch a ride with someone so she and her walker won’t miss meeting with friends. Her speech is not always clear, but she points that out … then bravely talks on!

A woman who suffers from headaches but would rather show up with an ice pack under the crown of her jaunty hat than miss the chance to be out and about (and, perhaps, distracted from her pain).

A writer friend with back problems still attends her workshop meetings and brings cushions of various shapes and sizes to accommodate any pain contingency that might occur.

And my greatest inspiration is a 65-year-old friend who never lets anything slow her down. Though she has medical problems, she is never too sick for a shopping trip, especially when the sales are on. The last time we had a date, she was in the midst of an asthma attack. Did it stop her? Absolutely not. She brought her nebulizer along for the ride, and we sat in the car while she misted her lungs before we hit the 50 percent off rack of cashmere at Macy’s.

Whether people cancel scheduled dates because of fear of potential pains or problems, or charge forward, is certainly part of our personal natures. But, as I have found, it is also a matter of perspective, which changes (slowly but still surely) as we age.

Case in point: 15 years ago, when I was 70 (and thought of myself as old), my husband and I went to visit my much older sister in Florida. After we arrived, she and her husband took us to their favorite deli for lunch. I still remember that distinctive aroma of fatty, salty, artery-clogging treasures, like corned beef, pastrami and salami, wafting through the parking lot. We joined a knot of people waiting for a table.

Everyone wore sweaters in the frigid air conditioning. The gray-haired man (who was certainly on his second career) breathed heavily as he, limping slowly, led us to our table. We went around walkers, dodged three-pronged canes, bullet-shaped canisters of oxygen and tangles of plastic tubing ending up in the noses of diners, who, undisturbed, chomped away.

“Oh my God,” I said.

“Isn’t it fabulous?” my sister said.

“Are you kidding? I lost my appetite,” I said.

“Oh, I think it’s wonderful,” she said. “All these people, on their last legs, maybe at death’s door, still craving a little bit of deli.”

Before we left, EMTs showed up for one diner, who, I swear, would have preferred to wait so she could get the rest of her sandwich wrapped to go before being wheeled out.

At the time, I was horrified and thought everyone there would have been better off safe at home. But now, in my mid-80s, I concede my sister had a point. There was a restaurant full of people who were maybe 50 percent in the feeling-okay department, and yet they were enjoying their corned beefs on rye instead of being “safe” at home, worrying about whatever ailed them or about what could be.

Has my perspective truly changed? Well, recently I had a suspicious twinge that might have turned out to be a tooth abscess, yet I kept my lunch date. And recently, despite the weather prediction of a storm and my car making that funny noise it sometimes makes, I did not back out of my promised visit to a friend. (But I was tempted.)

So, I guess you can say I am a work in progress. I'm not 100 percent yet, but at 85, I’d say, “Not bad.”

Are you someone who often cancels plans, or do you forge ahead no matter what? Let us know in the comments below.