The "Evil" Steps
When I was younger I had always wanted to live in a house with an upstairs and downstairs and I used to love going to my grandmother's house because she had a house like that, the only person I knew with a house with an upstairs. When I was a kid I would run like the wind up and down the stairs all day long practically. Back then it was fun and my cousins and my sisters and myself used to play on the steps for hours. My grandmother would always say stop running on the stairs. Plus in her back yard there were two sets of stairs so we could play on those too. I guess you could say that we were a hot mess as kids. Or just being kids.
Flash forward to 40 plus years later and all my cousins and my sister and myself are all over 40 and our parents are all over 60 so now stairs have become "evil" to our parents. We can still go up and down them, our 40 plus generation, some days better then others but they haven't become "evil" for us yet. Although, I would prefer not to go up and down too much or too often on any given day. But, it seems like these days these steps in the front of my house, those 17 steps have given me quite the work out on some days going up and down and down and up.
My mom is now 70 plus years old and has suffered a couple of strokes and more health problems in the past 3 years then she nor I can count. It was just like all of a sudden she was good one day and not so good the next. Although, on her best days she did not like steps too much and avoided them when she could. For a couple of years we lived in my grandmother's old house and by the time we moved there it had been remodeled so they had stairs in the front of the house going to the bedrooms which were all upstairs and stairs at the other end of the house going in the same direction upstairs to the bedrooms. So, if you were in the living room in the front of the house there were stairs about ten feet from you and you could go upstairs to the bedroom that way and if you were sitting in the den in the back of the house you could go upstairs that way too. I know at times my mom probably wished we had an elevator. But, to even out the stairs she had the biggest bedroom in the house that was the size of a small apartment. I miss that house. But, nonetheless, she still didn't like to walking up the 20 or so stairs to go to bed each night. And she was about 13 years younger then.
So, after we moved from there, unfortunately, we looked for places with little to no stairs. That was the mission impossible around here. We looked in maybe 5 cities too. We ended up back where we started almost. Just on the other side of town from were we used to live and we also found steps too. The first place we moved to after the move from my grandmother's house to an apartment, had about 12 steps. But the steps were not too difficult to climb. They were brick stairs and uniform.
About a year later we moved again and to more stairs. My mom calls them evil and she always has a hard time coming up the steps. I think her anxiety kicks in coming up but not going down. Which when you think about it makes sense since going down is a lot easier then going up. So, it made sense that after the doctor's appointment yesterday she had almost total meltdown just looking at the steps. After we brought a chair down for her to sit on and just relax for a bit before she went up she was okay, or better. She didn't like it and it took a lot of talking and reassuring her that it would be fine and good exercise too she finally said OK lets go. It took a long time but we made it and we made it on piece. And when that happens it is always a good thing.
Now only if she didn't think that steps were so evil. But, we are getting there. One day at a time or in this case one step at a time.
Flash forward to 40 plus years later and all my cousins and my sister and myself are all over 40 and our parents are all over 60 so now stairs have become "evil" to our parents. We can still go up and down them, our 40 plus generation, some days better then others but they haven't become "evil" for us yet. Although, I would prefer not to go up and down too much or too often on any given day. But, it seems like these days these steps in the front of my house, those 17 steps have given me quite the work out on some days going up and down and down and up.
My mom is now 70 plus years old and has suffered a couple of strokes and more health problems in the past 3 years then she nor I can count. It was just like all of a sudden she was good one day and not so good the next. Although, on her best days she did not like steps too much and avoided them when she could. For a couple of years we lived in my grandmother's old house and by the time we moved there it had been remodeled so they had stairs in the front of the house going to the bedrooms which were all upstairs and stairs at the other end of the house going in the same direction upstairs to the bedrooms. So, if you were in the living room in the front of the house there were stairs about ten feet from you and you could go upstairs to the bedroom that way and if you were sitting in the den in the back of the house you could go upstairs that way too. I know at times my mom probably wished we had an elevator. But, to even out the stairs she had the biggest bedroom in the house that was the size of a small apartment. I miss that house. But, nonetheless, she still didn't like to walking up the 20 or so stairs to go to bed each night. And she was about 13 years younger then.
So, after we moved from there, unfortunately, we looked for places with little to no stairs. That was the mission impossible around here. We looked in maybe 5 cities too. We ended up back where we started almost. Just on the other side of town from were we used to live and we also found steps too. The first place we moved to after the move from my grandmother's house to an apartment, had about 12 steps. But the steps were not too difficult to climb. They were brick stairs and uniform.
About a year later we moved again and to more stairs. My mom calls them evil and she always has a hard time coming up the steps. I think her anxiety kicks in coming up but not going down. Which when you think about it makes sense since going down is a lot easier then going up. So, it made sense that after the doctor's appointment yesterday she had almost total meltdown just looking at the steps. After we brought a chair down for her to sit on and just relax for a bit before she went up she was okay, or better. She didn't like it and it took a lot of talking and reassuring her that it would be fine and good exercise too she finally said OK lets go. It took a long time but we made it and we made it on piece. And when that happens it is always a good thing.
Now only if she didn't think that steps were so evil. But, we are getting there. One day at a time or in this case one step at a time.
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