Going up and down stairs takes more effort than it used to. The effort is not only physical, it's mental. I remember going up stairs two at a time. Now I often think about a joke:
When I was twenty I took stairs two at a time.
When I turned forty I started taking them one at a time.
Now that I'm sixty, I take the elevator.
The joke's funnier when it's told out loud. Getting just the right inflection and rhythm on the last "take" is important. Timing is often important. Thankfully, my mind is still relatively quick. My feet have slowed down, though. I can remember coming down stairs in sort of a controlled fall. Though I've always been far from graceful, I was able to kind of flip my feet, sliding over the edge of one stair, barely catching the next, just enough to slow my descent to a manageable rate. There was some danger in coming down stairs that way. As I look back, though, it didn't seem that great. A sprained ankle or a broken arm wasn't that big a deal. I'd get over it. Actually, I think more about that controlled-fall descending style, now, looking back than I ever did when I was doing it. Back then it was automatic, so was climbing the stairs. In fact, I didn't really climb them. I just walked, or even ran, up them, as I said, sometimes two at a time. Now, I think about them. I want to be sure that each foot is firmly planted before I trust my full weight to the change in elevation that is coming. Do I do the one step at a time method, letting my stronger right leg do most of the work? Especially if I'm carrying something that is a good option. (Or is it a tempting option?) Or do I give my left leg the exercise it needs? You know, "Don't give in." Since I live in a house with three stories I quiz myself on that several times a day. So far I'm passing the test. The answer key is, "Did he fall?"
Not only do I think about how to go up and down the stairs these days, I think about what thinking about stairs means. This is where my wife's advice comes in. She is a proponent of thinking young. Don't talk about being old. In many ways, I agree. A case can be made that a number is an arbitrary thing. On the other hand, numbers are most useful when they are attached to something meaningful. Having twenty dollars in my wallet is much better--twenty times better in fact--than only having one. When it comes to stairs, having seventy-one years is worse than having twenty-one. I'm well aware that modern medicine and a greater emphasis on health have allowed us, on average, to stay more active longer than our grandparents but that only goes so far. I'm at the age now when I take greater note of those who are five, ten, or fifteen years older than me. Sometimes I take note when I read their obituary. I think of the lightning speed with which the last year passed and . . . well, you complete the thought. If I don't get my foot placed right on that fifth step coming down I could waste six months of what's left in surgery, in a cast, on a walker, or worse. I could see the surgeon about getting a new left knee--I like my titanium right one--but again the subtraction factor enters in, and like stairs, surgery isn't a sure thing. Do I leave well-enough alone, or should I choose to fix what's no longer good enough? My wife is right; focusing too much on being old detracts from making the most of the life we have. Yet, there is wisdom in learning to number our days.
I'm sitting in a chair, now, so I can think about that. When I'm on the stairs, I can't be distracted. I guess that is sort of my paradigm for living right now. Some years ago a friend of mine said, "When you get to be my age you don't concern pay the extra money to put the thirty-year shingle on your house." I visited my friend's house not long after he died. Sure enough, it needed a roof, but the twenty-year shingles had out-lasted my buddy. I think he was wise to use his limited resources on the twenty years he had rather than focus on the ten he didn't have. Of course, I know he was just playing the odds.
The bottom line about all of this is really no different than it was back when I twenty-one looking forward to the next fifty years, which is now the last half-century. What really matters is using my days, however many or few they be, to the glory of the God of eternity.
For now, I have more stairs to climb. Pray for me.
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