Monday, August 20, 2012

Old Age Day by Day August 20, 2012

My husband and I took two walks up a nearby mountain, and had a nice time.  On the first one I had trouble with the loose gravel and the incline, but the second was easy.  I also have trouble with heights, so there were lookouts I avoided.  Even on the way up or down in the car I struggled mightily with looking out or down.  I get very anxious.  I believe I've always had this problem, but it has gotten worse with age.  My mind goes to over the edge, and I feel as if I'm falling.  Deep breaths help and sometimes closing my eyes.  I fell three times as a kid:  down the basement stairs, on an escalator, and from the iron fireplace screen.  No permanent damage, but I was painfully hurt each time.  When I fell down the basement stairs, I was rushed to the emergency room, and I had to have stitches in my head and was told a quarter inch more I'd have died.  I was only five, but that stuck with me.  "Vertigo" is not a movie I can easily watch. 

All I can say is for me and Jimmy Stewart, falling represents death, and one's own mortality.  The more I get used to the fact I'm going to die, the more I'm afraid of it, on some level.  We can't be completely rational, not all the time, and our body reminds us of this, by getting dizzy, closing the eyes, tensing up.  The body is not ready, and it's not buying any of this intellectual rationalization.  The body says:  "Don't get near any edges or cliffs, you might slip".  Our friend, a few years ago, who was an experienced and inveterate hiker in Colorado, was on an easy walk on the hills above his house, and disappeared.  They found him two days later, fallen, and leaving a mystery as to how it could have happened.  A moment of dizziness, loose gravel, looking at an eagle overhead.  His wife and kids will never know.  Death comes when it comes. 

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