Braking

You know how the tractor-trailer of illness makes you slow down on some days? How those days are always when you had a great plan – the creative project you were hungry to greet, the list of tasks you were eager to kill off, the simplicity of just following a plan, any plan?

But you wake up, and your throat hurts and the clarity of thought is lurking behind a misty cloud, and every time you try to stand, you just give in and fall backwards on your bed.

And you complain. You want the day you’d counted on.

Welcome to my Wednesday.

I’m trying not to resist, but more so, to listen. To allow my body what it needs, acknowledging all the times it serves me and I don’t properly thank it.

So here’s a belated ‘thank you, Body.’

I apologize for the days that I feed you poorly and don’t let you sleep in. Sometimes life calls, and you come in second. It isn’t really fair, and I’ll try to better consider your needs in the future. I’m sorry that I exercise you in crazy spurts past the point of health, desperate to knock off a few pounds that snuck up on me, and then when you want to get out and stretch your legs, I tell you I’m not in the mood. Sorry. That’s not very thoughtful.

I’ll no longer get annoyed with you when you want to watch a rerun of ‘Friends’ before bed rather than read the heady novel I’m attempting to tackle. You deserve your guilty pleasures, so I’ll stop rolling my eyes.

But most of all, I’ll try to embrace the day that shows up and quit whining that it wasn’t what I’d wanted. When you press the brakes, I’ll slow to a stop, breathe calmly, and just accept. After all that you do for me, it’s the least I can do for you.