Fall Risk Redux

"I don't want you to see me fall," I said. "I want you to think I'm cool."

I had another fall this week. Not a Dysautonomia one. My brain wasn't too empty of blood or too full of blood; my vagus nerve was neither over- nor under-stimulated; my orthostatic tension was not hyper, nor was it hypo. I just fell over some trash on the curb. Actually, no. That's too passive. I put my trash out on the curb on pickup night, lined it up all nice and neat, and then tripped backwards over it less than one minute later. I thudded. I skidded. I flipped. I flopped. The whole thing.

My wife was watching from the porch because we've reached the age where we like to gossip mercilessly about how inefficiently our neighbors manage their own personal garbage. She came running down the stairs, frantic. I never fall with any sort of grace. I'm sure I looked like a drunk giraffe whose noggin clunked down awfully close to a very busy street in Queens.

I tried to play it cool. I put my hands behind my head and propped up my feet on the light pole I'd almost smashed into. "Hey, girl," is what I said.

What Stacy said was, "It's not funny! Are you okay? Is your neck okay? Jesus, you're bleeding! Like, a lot!"

I'm one of those weirdos who spent a lot of time in my 20s thinking about what a person I was dating might be like in their 70s. Maybe it's because the TV show I’ve watched on repeat my whole life is The Golden Girls. But more probably it's because the married couple I spent the most time around throughout my life was my grandparents. I watched them discuss and plan and execute dozens of home renovation projects over the years, as they aged. An accessible shower without a step up or over, and with a nice built-in marble bench and handrail, long before either of them needed help with balance. The laundry room moved from the basement to the main floor of the house, so it wouldn't be dangerous to wash clothes once it became tricky to navigate the stairs. A wrap-around porch with a built-in ramp next to the best parking spot, for walkers or wheelchairs, when both of my grandparents were still out and about and moving around without a worry in the world.

What hooked me, with Stacy, was the night on the phone when she told me she wanted to be with me long enough to watch my face transform; to experience the love and the laughter and the wisdom that would lead to wrinkles and creases and all the things that happen if you're lucky enough to age. Pretty much everyone I knew was obsessed with appearing younger. I couldn’t believe we were both thinking about what it might be like to be old together.

But none of that wondering prepares you for the day you’re standing in the middle of the living room, naked, turning around in a slow circle so your wife can point out all the places you've gashed yourself open by crashing down — again! — onto the filthy sidewalk. The sting of the rubbing alcohol, and how it’s so much less painful than the sting of your ego. It's funny how you can still be surprised by your own insecurities, even at a big age. How, 15 years into a relationship, you can still want to impress the girl you love. I felt bashful in my lumpy, dimpled, clumsy body, which is almost too silly to even write. My wife sees me naked all of the time, multiple times a day, every single day.

"I'm feeling a little tender," I said.

"Physically?" she asked, wiping blood off my elbow. "Or emotionally?"

Emotionally, obviously. My body is always in some kind of pain. I don't need comfort for that.

"I don't want you to see me fall," I said. "I want you to think I'm cool."

"First of all," she said, "It's not 'uncool' to fall. And second of all, you've been smashing and crashing into stuff since the day I met you. I didn't fall in love with you because you're, like, sturdy on your feet."

I laughed so hard, because yeah. Who falls in love with someone because they're light-footed and agile? Elves maybe. Or professional athletes. Not regular humans. As I was giggling, and Stacy was grimacing at the giant bruise she’d discovered on my hip, I remembered something I hadn't thought about in years.

In the early days, about a year into our long-distance relationship, I visited Stacy in New York City in the dead of summer. Walking outside was like hitting a brick wall of heat and humidity. When the Mister Softee truck stopped in front of her apartment, she asked if I'd ever had one, and I said I'd had about seven hundred bazillion ice creams from ice cream trucks, over the course of my life. She sat up straight and scowled and said, "Mister Softee is more than an ice cream truck.”

Then, she bolted out the front door.

I grabbed my shoes and followed her, bursting onto the sidewalk in my socks, trying to shove my feet into my purple high top Chuck Taylors, and keep up with her. She was running, fully running, faster than I'd ever seen her move, stalking down that Mister Softee truck — and the whole time, she was yelling behind her, "Stop! Stop chasing me! You're gonna fall! Tie your shoes! I'll get the ice creams! You're gonna fall!"

I don't know if it's because Mister Softee is, categorically, better than all other ice cream trucks. Or if it's because of the way Stacy has always wanted to share everything she loves with me, from the very beginning. Or if it was the fact that she'd clocked how clumsy I am, even back then, in the days when everything was still new and fragile, an endless evaluation, and it didn't diminish her attraction to or affection for me.

I guess I really have been falling since Stacy met me. Falling off my mountain bike, falling over my own feet, falling for her.

When she returned — her face pink and adorably sweaty — and handed me that cherry-dipped vanilla soft serve, I knew I was going to love her. Maybe I already did. Probably I already did. But that's when I knew I was going to let her shatter my heart if she wanted to. Or something even scarier. I was going to let her love me back. It really was the most delicious ice cream cone.