Out On Four Wheels

It’s not exactly the Freedom of the Road, and many people advancing in years, fight against them right up until the last moment, but even these four wheels bring a certain degree of self-confidence and more. I’m not sure, being relatively young and fit, how I would feel when my legs begin to give way, when I can no longer walk for hours through the city streets, when my hands begin to turn to claws and stiffen, but I see it in others. We worry so often about things that are irrelevant – such as how other people see us when, in reality, they do not see us at all – and forget about the advantages of taking a step down from our earlier independence; accepting the passage of time; taking those shorter steps out with assistance to enjoy the best of times. Using such mechanical assistance is, for me, not so much a sign of loss of independence, and more the grabbing of what independence is still available, and using it to the best of our abilities.

Although, for some, it is more than just an escape from closed rooms and a lonely house, it is a small way to gain access to some alternate forms of subsistence, when society has let us down.