Over 50 can you get yourself off the floor?

Most people that I know under 50 never even think about this. I didn't either for a very long time. In this long-form video script that I wrote for Substack originally and am now reading and talking to camera for you, which feels about as natural as it sounds, but here's what I have not been able to stop thinking about. This past weekend, I helped my 82-year-old neighbor off of her floor. So we had just come from visiting another elderly friend in the hospital. Then my phone rang. "Hey, Trey, what are you doing?" And it was my neighbor. And I was like, "I'm about to eat lunch." And so it seemed like she was in for one of her stories, a long chat, that kind of thing. But her next line was, "Well, I've fallen and I'm down and can't get up." And I need you, I need you girls' help. And so she was down. This is not the first time that I've gotten that call. So my partner and I walked from our home right next door. And when we got there, she was sitting on the floor between her kitchen and her dining room. And she had been there for a couple of hours. Now she is someone who has a live-in partner and he isn't strong enough, wasn't strong enough to lift her up as, lift her up off of the floor either. And neither was she able to lift herself up off of the floor. So my partner and I positioned ourselves, um, on either side of her and then we lifted her from the floor to sit her in her walker that she uses around the house. And the goal was to push her all the way down the hall to the bedroom. And so we began pushing, and every step that she took, there was a scream, there was yelping because she was in pain because she believed that when she fell, she landed on her hip, a hip that she broke 4 years ago. So She had fallen on the hip and she thought she re-broke it. When we reached the bedroom, as excruciating as it was, she just wanted us to help her get into bed. We're like, okay, we can help you do that. If you can just stand up, maybe take a couple steps to the bed, but we can be on either side to help and guide you to the bed. And we will be like your security. And so we tried to stand her up. There was more yelling and more excruciating pain. And She couldn't, she couldn't stand up. She couldn't even get out of that seated walker position and stand up and put her whole weight on her right leg. That was the moment that my partner and I looked at each other and realized we were not dealing with just a fall anymore. We were dealing with a woman who, once we put her in the bed, She would not be able to get back up to even use the bathroom. She would not be able to, you know, get up and get a glass of water, do any of that. So instead of helping her to the bed, we decided that we needed to actually call 911. So after that, the fire department came, they assessed her and realized that, okay, yes, she needs to go to the emergency room, she needs to go to the hospital. So later on, I called to check on her and she shared with me that She had re-broken her hip. She had a broken rib and she had a couple places that were like broken in her back. I don't really know what that means when your back is broken in a couple places and you're not having surgery. I don't know, but that's what she communicated to me. But since then, I haven't been able to stop thinking about the weekend and seeing her on the floor and not being able to get up and use her own muscles to get herself up off of the floor and then her live-in boyfriend not being able to do it either. I am almost 30 years younger than she is and time moves so fast and you look up and shit, a decade's gone. And I keep coming back to the same question. When I'm 82 and I fall in my own kitchen, will I be able to get myself back up? You see, I already work out. I strength train several times a week, but I never had the visual image like this weekend created. And now I just can't unsee it, which is honestly, I mean, it's, it's kind of annoying because I like my old relationship with the gym better. It was simpler. I go there, it was vain. I can try to get stronger. I want to wear better clothes. Summer is here. I want to be able to, you know, all the things. That we go to the gym for. A couple of years ago, a good friend's mother said to me, I think it was like, I don't know, we were visiting our friend's house like on Thanksgiving or something. And her mom, who's a very, very sweet lady, she just happened to like, you know, we're greeting each other and we were hugging each other and she stepped back and she said, you know what? If I was the kind of person who was ever going to mug someone, I think I'd skip you. That's exactly what she said. I think I'd skip you. So at first, honestly, I think I was a little offended, maybe a little taken aback. And my partner has said long before then and to the same day that when I have my sport glasses on, like when I'm about to go out and play pickleball, just go out in the sun or be active, she thinks I just, I look mean. So maybe that was it. Maybe that's what, you know, my friend's mother was talking about. Well, then it dawned on me. Hell yeah, I like it. I look like someone that you don't want to fuck with. I look strong and I love it. So back to the situation, back to my neighbor. You see, the decline doesn't start just when you fall and you can't get back up. It starts decades earlier. Now, I've skipped workouts just like everyone else has because I was tired or I had too much other stuff going on, or there were other places that I'd rather be than the gym. And I would think it wasn't a big deal. I can just make it up, you know, another time. But now I see it so differently. Which also reminds me of my mother. And so my mom lived to be 85. About 10 years or so before she passed, we would go down to New Orleans and, you know, hang out with my mom. And if she was standing up and walking, and my mom had had several back surgeries, so she would lose her balance sometimes. And so because she would lose her balance, and sometimes it would just be like, out of nowhere. And so she would just say, "I'm going down. I'm going down." And if you were around, that was like your warning to either— I think she kind of was like, "I'm going down. Help stop me from going down." But my mother was a bigger lady up top. And so, you know, I didn't want to be the person— you didn't want to be the person who got between her going down and cushioning that fall. And so my mother said, I'm going down. And she went down. And so I remember that even at that time, my mother never really worked out in her life because she was busy working a lot and she was always providing for the family. And so growing up, I love taking baths. That was one of the things that my mother loved doing as well. But at 75, 76, she was not able to get herself out of a bathtub. So now it came down to taking showers, even at her age, putting a chair in the shower so that she could bathe. For me, this is about in the last chapter of life, do I get to stay in my own house, take 2 and 3 baths like I do right now? Do I get to get myself out of the bathtub? This is about even if I fall at 82, getting myself back up. If I fall inside my house, if I fall outside, this is about living fully and doing all the things that I love doing until I'm 100. Like, I still want to go for long walks, you know, right now I still run some. I love playing pickleball. I want to play pickleball till I'm 100. And so the person I will be at 82 is being built today, being built right now, is being built last week, last month, in every workout, in every workout that I show up for and every workout that I skip, because I believe whether you go to the gym or not, and it's not always about just going to the gym, you can work out from home. You can work out anywhere. But I believe when you work out or don't, it's a vote for your future self. It's a vote for the person that you're becoming. And either way, we're always creating results. So the last thing I want to leave you with is train like your 82-year-old self is watching, because she is. All right, I'm done being dramatic, but you get the point.