Getting Off the Floor at Fifty: Midlife Mobility Mishaps and Laughs

So there I was, sitting on my bedroom floor

surrounded by spring and summer clothes that I haven't

worn in a while. And all of a sudden,

I had a thought that sent actual

panic through my body. How the hell am I

going to get up from here? Because apparently

my 50 year old body decided today was

the day to remind me that what goes

doesn't always come back up without a fight.

And by fight, I mean grunting, cussing,

a few tears, and even seriously

considering just staying on the floor the rest of the day

until my man got home.

Welcome to Midlife Shenanigans with Tish, where today

I'm talking about the humbling reality of mobility,

the floor, and why I might need

to start wearing one of those medical alert

necklaces. But like a totally cute one. I

would have to bling it out and, you know, make it super sparkly. But

I digress. Okay, so let

me paint you this picture. It's Friday,

and I'm in full vacation prep mode.

I leave for the beach February 1st for

three weeks. Yes, you heard that

right. Three glorious weeks.

And I realized I needed to find my vacation

clothes. Now, normally, most people would

probably pull those clothes out of their closet, but nope,

not me. I tend to throw my

spring, summer slash vacation clothes

in two bottom dresser drawers. Now, I have

a pretty big dresser, so bending over

to get into these drawers,

it's okay to bend over and get into them. But if I need to spend

any amount of time in there going through the stuff that's in there,

it's not comfortable to just bend over to go through all that.

So I did what any reasonable person would do.

I plopped myself down on the floor, yanked open the

drawers, and started pulling out my tank tops,

sundresses, shorts, like I was on some kind of

treasure hunt. Because it kind of is a treasure hunt. Because I haven't

wore this stuff in so long, I didn't even remember what I had in

there. And for probably a good 10

minutes, maybe even 15 minutes, I was having a

great time. Found clothes that I forgot that I had.

I was feeling even productive.

And then, then I

was finished. I'd found the clothes that I wanted to

try on, see how they fit, see if they would

even still be something that I wanted to take with me. Side

note, I am going to Gulf Shores, Alabama, and

the weather right now is

not very warm. And the day I get there, it's only going to

be like 54 degrees. So am I even

going to need shorts and a sundress

and other springy Summery type clothes? I

have no idea. Okay, side

note aside, I'm finished with what I need

to do. And I thought, okay, now

it's just time to get up off the floor so I can try this stuff

on, go through it. What I'm going to take, I'll sit in a pile so

I can pack it. Except for

my body decided that it

did not want to get up off the floor

because apparently at some age

between probably like 45 and currently,

which I'm 50 at the time of recording this, my body

decided that getting up from the floor was no

longer a given. It was not something that was just going to

be automatic anymore. So

I try the normal move, you know, you just like, stand

up. Like I used to be able to do when I was younger.

Except for that did not work.

I get it. Like, my brain is telling my body what

to do, but my body is like, oh, hell no,

honey, that ain't happening. So this time I

decided, okay, I'm gonna roll to one side and try to

push myself up and stand up. Y.

Let's just say that's when the grunting started. Now,

mind you, I am at home alone.

My fiance and I, we have roommates, but

they are gone. My man is gone. At work, it's just

me and the dog. So I am carrying on this

full conversation with myself. Okay, Tish, you've

got this. Just roll to your knees and push

yourself up. It's that simple. So I

roll, I get to my. And

immediately I'm like, yeah, this ain't gonna work either.

All right, Tish. All right, you got this. You. You can do this.

Just scooch over to the bed and use the bed to push

yourself up. So I'm like crawling over

to the bed. Now, our bed.

So we used to have a really tall platform bed. And both my

fiance and I are not tall people. So we

had to, like, do a little jump to get up on our

platform bed. And with our dog getting older, it was too

high for him to jump up and down. So we decided to get rid of

the platform bed. What we now have is a mattress

on a 7 inch frame,

literally 7 inches off the floor. Now when we're ordering this,

I'm like, okay, seven inches is, you know, pretty

decent. Oh, no, not when it's a 7

inch bed frame and you have like a.

I think our bed mattress is

16 inches, 18 inches. So literally, by

the time I scooch over to the bed,

the bed is just as freaking low, maybe just a

little bit taller. Than where I'm already at on the

floor. This is when the cussing

starts. I'm not going to tell you exactly what I said,

but let's just say had there been a fire

in this house during this time, I would

not have made it out. I'd still be on that floor

yelling profanities, trying to figure out

how the hell to get my ass up off that floor.

Now here's the thing. Somewhere between

attempt number three and four, a few

tears started to trickle down my face. I was not

sobbing by any means, but just that

frustrated, overwhelmed, starting to panic. Oh

my God, what the hell am I gonna do? I'm alone. How

am I going to get up? Do I need to call 91 1? Like,

what the hell do I do? So I'm,

you know, this frustrated crying. And

meanwhile, during all of this, my dog thinks that because

I'm on the floor and I'm like rolling around and trying to get

up, he thinks that I want to play. So he is not helping the

situation any by nudging his nose into my face and, you

know, nudging his nose into my belly and stuff because he wants to

play. But there I am and I'm just

realizing, like, I'm starting to panic.

Literally, like starting to have a panic attack.

So I had this momentary lapse of judgment and I was like,

I need to call my man. Like, I need to pick up my phone,

call him and be like, hey, babe, so

funny story, I'm stuck. Can you come home and help

me? But then there was two things that I immediately remembered.

One, where he works, like,

it's probably like an hour away, so I'd literally be stuck

on this floor for another 60 minutes. And

two, he would find this

hilarious. Like, never let me live it

down level of hilarious. I'd be hearing floor jokes

for the rest of my life. He would be telling friends, he would be

telling family. Like, he just would not let me live

it down. So I decided, nope, I'm doing this myself, even

if I'm going to break a leg or break my neck or

something. So finally,

I'm. I'm guessing it was at least five

minutes, maybe even longer. I

finally got my ass up off that floor.

And when I finally stood up, I just stood there

and I did a little victory yelp. Like, woo, woo.

I freaking did it. My legs were shaking, my arms were

shaking, my dignity was definitely bruised,

but damn it, I was up off that floor. And

look, I can laugh about this as I'm sharing this with

you. I mean, Hello? You can hear me laughing because it is

objectively funny. But

I also saw this as a wake up call,

not a wakeup call in the fact that, like, I'm trying to

shame myself into taking some sort of action,

but in a way that I viewed this

as data. Like, okay,

you know, this could be a major issue

down the road. If I'm 50 right now and already having

a hell of a time getting up off the floor like this, what's going to

happen when I'm 60 or 70 and maybe I fall and literally

cannot get up off the floor? Like something

I'm. I was just using what happened as

kind of like a data point and just telling myself

that, okay, this is something that

I need to think about. So when it's

all said and done, the truth is I want to be able to

get down on the floor. I want to be able to sit

on the floor with any future grandkids that I might

have in my life. You know, I want to be able

to sit back down on the floor and go through those

dresser drawers, basically. I just want to be able to do whatever the

hell I want with. With something like that,

with mobility, without it becoming this whole freaking

thing like it was today. Now, it made

some fun podcast, you know, fodder.

But

what I realized is I probably need to

start doing some sort of, like, stretching,

like mobility work. Anything that's going to help me

bring back. I don't even know, like, what.

I'm not even sure what I'm trying to say. Like, how do you bring mobility

back? Like, how do you help yourself learn

to get down on the floor and get back up off the

floor? So all of that

to say, I'm gonna do some research because,

you know, Google, hello, good old Google.

Google. I can't. I can't talk. You

know, I used to do yoga, so maybe that's a good place to start. I

don't know. I need to just literally Google this and figure

out how to start building my. Not my stamina,

but my mobility back up.

Yeah. So I just literally need to be able to

get back up off the floor without.

Without needing a medical alert necklace.

Yes. I'm saying this with a little, you know, tongue and cheek humor.

Anyways, so if you are listening

to this and you've also had a moment where your

body reminded you that things have changed,

girlfriend, you are not alone. Midlife

bodies are freaking weird.

They just do weird shit. And for

me, I've realized that this requires

patience, humor,

and as in today's case, A very

strategic, but not so strategic

exit plan to get up off the floor. But

I also want to remind you that these bodies are

still ours. These bodies? Well, of course they're

still ours. I mean, what the hell? Like we would be walking around in somebody

else's body. That's creepy. But what I'm trying

to say is that these bodies, even

despite things changing and us, you know, not being able to

move or do things that we once used to be able to do, our.

Our bodies are still freaking amazing like they

are. We can just be appreciative

of what our bodies still allow us to do.

And they just.

I don't know, I think like, our bodies deserve our,

our kindness and our respect and our,

like, acceptance of them. So

I would love to know, have you experienced

something like this? Please reach out and let me know

because I can't be the only one

that literally got down on the floor and had a hell of a time getting

back up. I mean, yeah, I just

want to know that I'm not alone. Somebody else please commiserate with me.

And if you have any advice or you know, of any,

like, YouTube videos or workout programs or anything

that is for a middle aged woman

wanting to rebuild her mobility, reach out and

let me know because I would love to hear

your tips, your tricks, your, you know, resources that

you're using. I would just love to,

to hear it. I could really use the advice. All right, gorgeous,

that's it for today. Thank you for laughing with me,

not at me. Well, okay, maybe at me, because, hello, I

laugh at myself. So it's totally okay if you're laughing at me because

it was funny. Anyways, I will catch you

next time. And in the meantime, maybe

stretch, Just do a few little stretches.