After the fall

You'd think I'd be over it by this time. It's been seven months since I fell and smashed my right arm. I've been doing my physio exercises diligently, and my arm's fairly functional now. But I still creep around the house with lights blazing, watching every step. I have to force myself to walk around outside, moseying along at half speed, eyes constantly sweeping the sidewalk in front of me. I feel like a ticking time bomb, a fall just waiting to happen, the one where I break a hip and end up in a nursing home for good.

There's something so shameful about falling. It's my fault, after all, a moment of bad judgment I bash myself over the head with, and who's to say there won't be more? I've lost my confidence, don't trust my body or my mind. I've applied all the obvious fixes: eyeglasses, physio, balance exercises, fitness exercises, home safety review, cane, sturdy walking shoes, good lighting and so on. But the anxiety and insecurity are still there. What makes it worse is that I used to be pretty fit. I loved taking long walks; it felt like swimming in the air. I hope I can get back to them one day, but for now I'm still inhibited by fear. Now I'm not just old, I'm doddering old.

But I think the bitterest pill of all is the reaction of family and friends. They're afraid of falling too, so they look for ways to distance themselves from me, to convince themselves they're not like me. As we walk down the street, they feel obliged to tell me to be careful, as if it would never occur to me on my own. One friend, who also had a recent bad fall, keeps telling me that I'm much worse off than she is, because I don't have a live-in partner, and that I'd better start arranging to move into care. Another friend sent me a list of all the things she does to keep herself from falling in the winter, all of which I also do. We're not quite equals any more, those friends and I. There's that whiff of ditziness about me now. But there's not much I can say to them, since they're only thinking the same things I've been thinking myself. It's going to take me a while to drag myself out of this hole. Meanwhile, I need to be patient and accepting of my friends, as hopefully they will be with me. The older we get, the more we're going to need one another.