an apology

While I was at the doctor's office yesterday I had a little bit of waiting to be done here and there, and I hadn't brought a book (how ill-prepared of me), so as a last resort I picked up an Oprah magazine. (All you Oprah-lovers plug your ears....Oprah drives me crazy.) I was pleased, though, to find a quote in the magazine that I actually felt compelled to write down. It was just too good for me to pass up.

"Why, I say, should I ever have bitterly blamed [my body] for such trifles as I have blamed it for: for having too much flesh in this spot, too little muscle in that, for producing this wrinkle, that sag, that gray hair, or this texture? Dear body! My dear body! It has gone about its incessant business with very little thanks."

-Janet Burroway

When I had a chest x-ray yesterday and looked at my bones on the film, for some reason, I was surprised. They were so small and....orderly. Or maybe "orderly" isn't the word I'm looking for. But my skeletal structure was oddly dignified. I looked at my bones with awe and respect. I've seen my femur and my knee and my shin on an x-ray; my hands, my arms. Never my ribs, my lungs, my collarbones, my spine. And my stomach! The x-ray tech said, pointing to a fist-sized black spot near the bottom of the film, "You're hungry! You need to eat! Look at that empty stomach." I meekly said, "I...had a cookie?" (For the record, I went and got an enormous Arby's meal after that appointment. I felt horribly sorry for my empty-space of a stomach.)

Anyway, that quote, that x-ray, and just thoughts of health in general made me feel like I have definitely taken my body for granted, and most certainly shamed it for its normal changes now and then. So, Body, I apologize. Dear body! My dear body! Thank you for going about your incessant business. :)