A Letter

Dear Body,

I know that I have not been kind to you in our long-seeming history, and I know that over the years I have been rather neglectful of your needs.  I am sorry.  You have done your best to carry me through each day with vigor, and I have rewarded your steadfast service with scant sleep, stress, unhealthy (but oh-so-tasty) food and drink, insufficient exercise, and little medical attention.

You've been remarkably resilient.  Until recently.

Dear body, I can understand when leg muscles ache if I've been walking or climbing mountains or stairs (which sometimes feel like mountains) or working them on those infernal weight contraptions at a gym.  I can understand feet, ankles, knees, and hips that snap, crackle, pop, and zing when put into service after carrying excess pounds all these years, even when many of those excess pounds have been shed.  I can understand wheezing, sneezing, itching, watering, and running when I've been dusting or playing with furry critters.  These things, and more, have cause and effect.

What mystifies me, dear body, is when I go to sleep with everything in moderately working order and wake with an ache, a pain, a stiffness, that I cannot explain.  Why does my foot hurt that way?  It was fine before bed last night.  What was I doing in my sleep?  And my wrist.  I went to bed with a wrist that was perfectly...er...wrist-y, and woke with what feels like an unpredictable electrical short in it when I move my hand.  Was I typing or knitting or playing tennis while I dreamed?

Today, it's my shoulder.  It hurts.  Not a delicate ache or an occasional wince, this is a full-on, can't find a comfortable way to hold my arm, ow, ow, owie, ow hurt!  Stretching doesn't help.  Heat doesn't help.  Holding very still is damned near impossible (have you met my children and my cats?) and doesn't help.  Careful movement doesn't help.

Dear body, I have been trying to do right by you.  I know it seems too little, too late, but I've made small changes and keep plugging toward a goal weight that is reasonable and within the range of healthy-for-my-body-type.  I stretch semi-regularly.  I don't go to the gym but I do housework and that should count as a workout (again, have you met my children and the cats?  The housework never ends), and I eat plenty of fruits and vegetables.  Lately I've even given you the occasional Arnold Palmer and Vodka of an evening.

Give me a chance and I am sure that I can continue to improve how I treat you,  but I can't do that if you keep whomping me with these aches and pains that slow me down and make me want to (carefully) crawl into bed and give up until my parts behave themselves!

C'mon, body, you and me are a team.  Work with me, here.

Sincerely,
K