It’s been a big week in the Annals of Catharine’s Decision to Lose Weight on Purpose. There’ve been a few things come up, and I’m going to write about them each individually, I think. Here’s the first, and the one that I think most of you will find most important.

Hitting the Floor

In 2021, I fell repeatedly. I fell in front of my mother as I tried to get down the concrete step in front of our house on my way to a surgical follow-up. I fell on my way to bed, naked as a jaybird (or as we used to say in my growing up, “naked as a shrimp,” which has always seemed more evocative and accurate), in front of my mother-in-law. Thank GODDESS, she’s a nurse, which took a bit of the edge off my mortification.

I fell on hardwood floors. I fell on carpet. I fell on concrete. 

Somehow I never hurt more than just my pride, for which I am very grateful. But I couldn’t get up. I was so weighed down with over a hundred pounds of retained fluid in my body and so weak that I just couldn’t do it. 

And so we had to call the paramedics. Three times, I think. I was chatty and tried to be funny and brazen it out. Nonetheless, having a giant fire truck pull up in front of my house with sirens on, all because I couldn’t get up from having fallen was just awful. So awful. 

And it reminded me of my father’s experience toward the end of his life. He fell and fell and fell. The paramedics had to come for him. My brother had to help him. It was terrible. And he hurt himself, broke his knee, bruised himself all over. It was all part of his steady decline. 

I figured I was dying, but that I was also “playing the hand that had been dealt me” as well as I could. I got used to the idea that I’d die young, and that people would see it as my fault, and they’d believe that I’d “eaten myself to death,” etc. etc. 

This year, though, this year I’ve turned 50, I have slowly stopped believing all that. Slowly. Inconsistently and slowly. 

Conquering the Floor

So this week, something that had been steadily swelling inside me decided to start to slowly open its petals. 

Standing next to my ottoman, with one hand on it just in case, I crouched down, one knee moving toward the floor. I started to feel the shift where my knee was having to hold more of my weight, and I got up and stood straight. 

I crouched down, one knee moving toward the floor, until it juuuuuust touched the carpet. And then I got up and stood straight. 

I crouched down, and let all my weight be on my knee, and pushed back with that foot and up with the foot in front of me, and turned and used the ottoman to help me. 

I got up, friends. And it wasn’t THAT hard. It was scary, yes. But it wasn’t SO hard that I can’t imagine getting up from sitting on the floor, if I had to. I felt safer than I have in years and years. I haven’t been able to get up off the floor in, I don’t know… five years? More?

Next up is to practice that method more and then, when I’m ready, to work toward intentionally sitting on the floor and getting up on one knee by the ottoman and doing it again. 

Congratulations, Qira. You’re slowly conquering your fears.