This Body (part 2)

I love this body of mine.

I love how it holds this conscious star essence that makes up what I see and feel and think. The “me” under the sinew and between the synapses.

I love how it moves (thank heavens I was born with rhythm!), even if it can no longer do all it could in my youth. I will always get on the dance floor and I will shake what I have for as long as I have alive.

I love that it has run countless miles, completing many half marathons and once finishing a marathon. That time and some unfortunate turns of events that made it so that this body can no longer run is an injustice, but I keep pursuing ways to get back to it.

I love that this body has climbed mountains, both physical and metaphorical. Any goal I set my mind to, I eventually achieve, or learn that what I could not conquer wasn’t meant for me.

I love that it has weeped heaving sobs for losses no person should ever have to face and it has participated in joy, celebrating personal successes and those of the ones I love. It has been a safe harbor to hold others as they grieve. It houses a mind that can give excellent advice, even if it chooses not to follow the same all the time.

This body has been caressed, held under hands in the throws of passion and love, and it has felt the sting of assault. It survived everything anyone ever tried to do to it, with or without my consent. It thrives.

This body has undergone most of the medical tests you could name in a minute and probably a bunch that you’ve never heard of. I don’t know anyone else who has had as many nuclear scans as I’ve been through. Sadly, I don’t phosphoresce. This body continues to be an experiment in the American medical system but I will pursue any means to get back to toeing a race start line, staring down a PR.

I love this body of mine. I don’t typically have any pain free days. It does wacky things like randomly fall down stairs. I’m super accident prone but I attribute that to the fact that I am forever creating, innovating, and pushing myself. What is life without a few cuts and bruises?

I love this body that houses this mind. The diplomas that adorn my walls proclaim me a philosopher, a theologian, and an historian. I’m a strict adherent to the Oxford comma. I like to play with structure and punctuation within the confines of the English language. This mind creates endlessly. It has written more words on more pages that no one but me will ever read. It’s currently working on a novel that will hopefully be published some day in the future when I finish weaving in Marx, Kant, Singer, Freud, and Socrates alongside a (hopefully) gripping story set within a world of my creation.

I love this heart of mine. It has grown by leaps and bounds over the years of effort and work in therapy. It still has some anxious attachments to learn how to express in a healthy way, but with the right people, they will learn to soothe those anxieties away before they arise. This heart forgives so much and asks so little, but it’s been learning to ask for more and expect no less than it deserves. This heart makes of the person a hopeful romantic. When I exist in mind alone, there is a stoicism and quiet but when I exist within my heart, the passion that rolls through my veins is set alight and I exist in fire.

I love this body of mine. I love it even more as age makes it softer, rounding the edges of my abs and my eyesight. I love it even as the energy I wish I could now muster from my youth escapes me. The mind and the heart still want to watch the sunrise after a night of dancing but the body calls for sleep at some sort of reasonable hour. I love it even though now it craves a schedule, despite spending decades avoiding anything even resembling one.

I love it as the wisdom of my age supersedes the impetuousness of my youth. I love it as I have learned the language to properly express the wild emotions within my heart, without screeching like a banshee (young me could get loud). I love that peace now trumps drama. I’d rather let go than hold onto something not meant for me.

Whatever may come, whatever mountains I climb in the future, whatever tragedies that darken my doorstep, this body is my home. It was long past time to show my home the same love I show my city.

I love this body of mine.