A Tale of Two Stories

As some of you may know I am currently in the process of moving. I will be going from a one bedroom apartment where I have resided for the past 7 years to half of a duplex. Now, there is something, I must confess that has been weighting on my mind about this particular residence. It is 2 stories high. Not a big deal to many, and I did indeed live on the upper floor of a condo one summer in Northridge, but in this case, the second level fills me with dread. This is all rooted in my childhood, as many neuroses are.

Our family lived (and my parents still live) in a ranch style home, we did not have to climb stairs on a daily basis, never huffing and puffing up and down to get this, that, or the other thing. Our delicate constitutions never bothered by lifting our knees to waist level to rest in an upstairs bedroom.

So where did this utter phobia of stairs develop?

I give you the two story house.

My best friend’s family lived in a two story house, the source of my angst. If we were upstairs we needed to be down, if we were downstairs we needed to be up. We were the equvilent of cats, always on the wrong side of every door. And Heaven forbid if we needed to go anywhere because there was always something left behind in the dreaded “UPSTAIRS”. Little kids racing from the car, to the house, and up those miserable stairs then snatching the missing item and doing the race in reverse. Heart pounding, lungs bursting, ready to pass out…that is what I associate those DAMN stairs with.

Not to mention the dubious habit the boys in the family had of leaving a multitude of sharp edged or hard cornered doodads on one or two steps so that when you were in a hurry you would smash your foot on one or land right on top of it either breaking it or injuring yourself.

Anyone who has lived with me, and there are few and far between in that category, know that I’m the sort of gal who likes neat piles of stuff, close at hand. Easily accessible items to entertain myself, none of this upstairs/downstairs nonsense. Plus everything you ever want to use downstairs is inevitably upstairs so once you use it you have to then haul it back up. I tell you, people were not created to climb stairs on a regular basis.

Perhaps my archnemisis....the stairs will become my friendly advocate by helping tone and tighten my miniscual glut muscle and then again, perhaps I will camp out in the living room with the dog when I feel too lazy to travel to my bedroom...