Fall Down, Get Up

There is a saying, "Fall down seven times, get up eight." I think I've fallen down a hundred times and gotten up ninety-nine. Can one really fall down only seven times and get up eight times? How can you get up if you don't fall? Kind of like saying I dropped seven matches but I picked up eight. The math just doesn't add up for me.

So, for me, I can't count how many times I fallen (for real, with the scars to prove it!) or metaphorically but I know I usually bounce back. Can I say that I have bounced back completely every time? No. Hence, the ninety-nine. I'm think I'm fairly whole these days but can one ever be one hundred percent?

But I think that most people do survive, move on, do the necessary. We have to because there is no other choice. And life is all about choice. One can choose to stay down or one can choose to get up. Regardless of why we get up, we do. We get up because our parents say get up. We get up for the children. We get up because it is the right thing to do.

I think about the women (and some men too) in ages past that went away to "sanitoriums". Life was too much for them. I don't long for those days because of the status women had as the "weaker sex" but I do think it would be nice sometimes to be able to go away to some place like that because life is too much. Meals provided on schedule, housework done, nothing to do but rest and read a book. Write in a journal.

When is the last time we heard of someone going away to a place like that? And, no, I'm not talking about the celebrities going to rehab. Your average every day working (at home or away) woman with children. First, do we even have any "sanitoriums" left and secondly, who'd take care of the children? Maybe there weren't really that many women who went to sanitoriums. Maybe it was just in the movies.

Maybe we've always just done what needed to be done. I know I have. I wonder how people are able to not do what needs to be done. Like working. I've never considered not working, not getting up in the morning and doing what needs to be done. I got up and cared for my children, I got up and went to work, I got up and cleaned the house. To me, the thought of not doing these things is frightening.

So here I am getting up again. Did I fall? Not necessarily. Maybe that's the point. You don't have to fall in order to get up. You get up regardless. So maybe I have fallen one hundred times and gotten up one hundred and fifty. Now make that one hundred and fifty-one as I get up and get to work doing the things that are necessary because that is what one does.