Elderly Adolescence

I have entered what I call "elderly adolescence." I’m 42. Most people my age are dealing with parents in the elderly adolescent phase, not being the bratty cripple themselves. Simply put, "elderly adolescence" is that phase of declining ability when old folk overstep their bounds and feel capable of continuing things they used to do. They get rebellious and insolent when someone resets or reduces the boundaries. As teenagers feel more capable than limited life experience has prepared them to actually be, in the elderly version the troublesome imp hasn’t readjusted to decreasing mental and/or physical limitations. My limits are physical only, and that’s part of the problem. I’m still too sharp for my own good. The rebellion rooted in combination and culmination of the physical limitations of being blind and what could be permanent foot damage called Charcot foot, and multi-front psychological crises of a very stressful period since Thanksgiving.
The very last time behind the wheel was just sheer reactionary rebellion. I only went to 7-11 six blocks from my house, but that’s left of my house and on the nearest controlled intersection, so I went the longer roundabout way of multiple right hand turns. These days, every flasher and floater lends me to see things that aren’t there and potentially miss things that are actually there. It was a jumpy stressful experience that I should not have undergone.
The physical and personal stresses of life that week and during the preceding one had just made something snap. I needed to get out, to do something for myself and by myself. Due to the Charcot foot, walking is no real option for me either. I didn’t want to call someone or particularly even talk to anyone that day. It was something I "needed" to do that day, as wrong as it was.
Nothing came of the experience. My "handlers" don’t know about it. Nothing got hit and no one got hurt, but I was jumping at shadows the entire time. It didn’t relieve any stressand probably raised the blood pressure for the day. I repeated this is a bad idea" for every ten feet the jeep rolled along.
I completed the errand and sat in the driveway behind the wheel for quite a while afterwards, trying to ingrain the stress I felt for the drive in order to force acceptance that I couldn’t do it again.
I have stopped driving. My elderly adolescence phase has not fully passed, but has gained enough of an angry, insolent edge that I will take all comers head on rather than sneak around. That’s more my style anyway. No one needs to take the keys, even if they could find all sets. The jeep is more unwieldy now anyway; it’s set up with the full plow rig for the winter.