I had been asleep. But now, it was 12:01 a.m., and I was wide awake.
As my husband snored, I scrolled through a certain Paper of Record on my phone:
I had already spent days soaking up the unending stories of mortal wounds the Trump administration is choosing to inflict with vengeance on the inhabitants of this nation.
I needed to do something more active than just being thoroughly steeped in existential misery.
Which is how I started indexing past all the headlines describing the mounting horrors replicating around the country, and landed on a story about how a person can age gracefully with just a few simple tests of basic fitness.
Which, I noted somewhat arrogantly as I scanned the listings, included the ability to balance on one leg! Which, I surmised, is something I could do because I had read about it several years ago in an article, probably a cut-and-paste clone of this one, and when I wobbled a bit during my initial experimentation. Failed? Failed?!
So I did what only an obsessive-compulsive would do; I kept testing myself at least three times a day for the last four years until I could confidently stand on one leg and not look like a physical comedian accidentally saving myself from a pratfall while I did it.
Truth be told, my skill was merely passable despite the effort and the unearned sense of achievement. I knew I hadn’t worked my way up to proficient.
This time, the challenge was to sit on the floor and stand up.
That’s it; sit and stand on a flat surface about two feet lower than a chair. My twenty-year-old-self snorted at the challenge as my forty-year-old self read the passage to the end and found the rubric maturity taught her to seek: “subtract one point if you have to use your hands or knees at any point as you sit or rise.”
Mid-fifties me threw back the covers and made my way in the dark to a patch of floor that promised a rug for a soft landing. This version of me - still standing in the dark - suddenly realized it had been at least a decade ago when I’d even attempted to sit on the floor without the assistance of at least one limb if not all four.
Still, I was awake after midnight and out of bed, my mind subtracting points from my fitness score that threatened to subtract years from my life.
So when I managed to hover close enough over the floor to flop down with only a minor thud, I was pleasantly surprised.
It wasn’t the smooth transition I swore I used to be able to manage, but I claimed the full ten points. If I could manage to reverse the maneuver, I’d keep the perfect 10.
Up I go … nope.
Try again: Criss-cross apple sauce. Nothing.
I windshield wiper my knees, placing one patella against the floor and using the tips of three fingers, I cantilever myself to standing.
How many points do I really have to subtract? One? Two?
That would still put me at 8; a respectable score for a spry … sixty-year-old?!
I mean, I hadn’t made a sound. Couldn’t I just add two points for managing to sit down and stand up without disturbing my still-sleeping husband?
Try again.
Down, still a flop without hands.
Up? No no no no …
Hiss into my phone: “Siri, show me how to stand from sitting without using my hands.”
The woman in the video Siri sends to my rescue rolls back onto the floor, crosses her legs in front, and rocks forward with enough momentum to spring to a mid-way squat. Then pushes all the way up to a standing position.
Now I try. Miraculously, I manage to replicate the series of moves without pulling any muscles that had up until now remained blissfully unaware of their decrepitude, and just like that, I am standing.
I award myself 1,000,000 points before I decide go back to bed.
I need to rest up for the rematch.
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