16 Steps to Glory (Amid a Move from Hades)

My wonderful wife Debbie and I are closing in on ‘done’ with our first move in a decade.

We were in our 40s the last time. Now we’re … not.

And for the first time in close to a quarter-century, we’re in a 2-story home.

“Are you sure?” I asked Deb, more than once.

“Yep — it’ll be good for us,” she said.

Uh-huh.

Actually, it’s gotten easier in just a few days than it was the first few times, when I counted the 16 steps the way I used to count out push-ups — very painfully, rarely successfully.

But my heart isn’t quite leaping out of my chest as it did at first.

I told my doctor I was moving to a house with its own built in 16-stair Stairmaster.

“Good — do 100 of those a day and you’ll be fine,” he said.

I neglected to ask if he meant 100 STAIRS, 100 trips up OR down the thing, or 100 round-trips.

Remind me not to ask him.

I also learned once again that the longer you are in one spot, the more … stuff accumulates. I’ll call it ‘crap,’ because that’s what I said under my breath with every too-heavy box of books I never read and never WILL read that got lugged up or down said 16 Stairs of Fun or into or out of a car.

We had 3 amazingly fit and burly guys do the truly heavy stuff. But they are fit, and we… well, the low point so far is when a 1,600-page (I kid you not) book on Office XP (what, 2-3 Offices ago?) decided to follow the laws of gravity and slip out of a plastic bag of Books I Hate and Will Recycle and fell… on my big toe.

Nope, didn’t break it, but it sure throbbed for a few.

So if you check my personal Facebook profile, you’ll find atop the page right now a prime example of why those 16 Stairs of Hateful Revenge on Old-Age Metabolism are worth it.

Until/unless the housing bubble blooms again (we’re in a half-built, at most, NE Bend neighborhood), we have a clear view of why so many of us put up with so much of what we’re not fond of here on the High Desert — a glorious view of the mountains and the sun setting behind them.

Almost makes up for every wheeze, ache and book-on-toe we’ve encountered (so far).

A bit closer to Heaven, you might say.

Hopefully, thanks largely to the 16 Stairs of Joy, Heaven can wait.

Even if the last boxes at the old place cannot.