All together now.

Dear Body,

I owe you an apology. 

You and I will be celebrating 31 years together in just 10 more days.  Thirty-one years of constant companionship, not one single moment spent apart.

When I took those first toddling steps way back in ‘77, you provided the equipment.  Throughout a ridiculously clumsy childhood, you endured a series of scrapes, gouges, and bruises that resulted from my poor decision-making and complete lack of depth perception, and we suffered through, what was it, a good two-dozen cases of poison ivy?

You’ve allowed only one case of strep throat and two cases of the flu to ever take hold, and your vigilance has kept serious illness at bay.

You have run when I asked you to run, bent into freaky positions during badly-done yoga, carried boxes and children and one small, rage-filled dachshund, and for the last several years, you have done all this with too little food and too little rest.

And even worse than that, you’ve done it while being called the most hurtful names I could imagine.  You’ve functioned exactly as you were designed to, and received only scorn in repayment.

I am so sorry.  I am so sorry for not giving you your due.

For not looking at you with wonder and gratitude.

For not loving every square inch of you.

For not feeding you well and moving you compassionately and letting you nap on the couch when you needed it.

I promise to do better.  Even though it is hard (so hard, so much harder than hard), I am not spending another year battling you.  I am not spending another year living only in my head while castigating you for your entirely reasonable requests of enough food and enough rest.

We’re going to have bad days.  Of course we’re going to have bad days.  But I need you.

There is no me without you.

So here’s to many more years.

Love, Me.