Getting up vs. aging

I tell people all the time, sitting down on the floor is a piece of cake. It's the getting up that is .....

My granddaughter, Jessica, has been helping me with some much-needed cleaning of cupboards, etc. I needed to put some things on the bottom cupboard shelves so I sat on the floor and had Jessica hand me the things.

It wasn't all that difficult getting down on the floor. The main thing you do is start to sit down and just let gravity take over from there.

After 15 minutes on the floor, I knew getting up was going to take some real determination.

I have a strange way of getting up from the floor. I get on my knees, stick my backside up in the air, bending over from the waist, with my hands on the floor in front of me. I can then "walk" my hands back toward my body, pushing my torso into an upright position.

It's not a pretty sight, but it works for me.

The other day, after the 15-minute period on the floor, I got on my knees, stuck my backside up in the air and tried to push myself backward and eventually upright. The process didn't work this time.

Then it dawned on me - I couldn't push myself upright because my feet were too far apart! To make this method work, it's important to keep the feet apart about the width of the hips. My left leg was off to the side way too far.

"Grandma, are you going to be able to get up?" Jessica asked, with a slight giggle in her voice.

"Yes, but not right now," I answered her, as I burst into a fit of giggling.

"My feet are too far apart," I struggled to tell her as I kept laughing, visualizing the funny sight I must have presented.

Finally, I had to give up and fall back on my knees on the floor.

After gaining my composure, I tried to get up again. Since I was careful to get my feet positioned correctly, I succeeded.

"Grandma, you are weird," Jessica said affectionately with a laugh.

"Maybe so," I replied, "but I bet I'm a lot more interesting than a grandma who sits in a rocking chair and knits or crochets all day."

Of course, if I sat in a rocking chair and knitted or crocheted my day away, I wouldn't have had those sore muscles I discovered the next morning.