Dear Body,

Hey, how’s it going? Pretty good I hope? Things are going pretty well here too, but I guess you already knew that.

So, um, anyway. I was kind of hoping to tell you thanks. You know, for like, seeing me through the last 34 years. I mean, it would probably have been easier for you when - during that last stint in Mexico - we were faced with a dozen beers and horse-killing amounts of tequila to simply say “forget it” but you didn’t. (Not to say you didn’t exact your revenge the next day as I spent several hours dragging you by your forearms to the bathroom while wishing I was dead, but in the end you decided to keep the lights on and let me live to see another day even though I probably didn’t deserve it. Viva la gringa indeed.)

Uh… yeah. So thanks for not killing me back then. Also, thanks for not quitting on me throughout the many abuses I’ve heaped on you over the years. Like that time in college when I wrecked my motorcyle in the middle of Fair Oaks Boulevard. Yeah, if I were you (which I am, kind of) I’d be pretty pissed about the fact that I managed to pitch you over the handlebars and get you run over by my then-unmanned bike. At least you and I were able to get the number of that nice waiter who ran out of Piatti’s to help you get out of the street.

Thanks too, for putting up with my dumb ass during those college years when I experimented with stuff that - as my friend Denise often said - “was made in people’s bathrooms”. I shudder when think back to all the chemical garbage I subjected you to even as I’m simultaneously relieved to have a justification for having spent those years as a registered Democrat.

You know what I’m most grateful for body? You’re energy levels, your strength, and your ability to endure.

You sustained two pregnancies and let me keep running well into the second trimester both times. You delivered two healthy and happy babies with nary a complaint and then gave me the energy to tend to them. Your ability to replicate yourself within my children is something that gives me pause whenever I see my son’s blue eyes or comb my hands through my daughter’s impossibly thick blond hair.  

You have completed eighteen mile “fun runs” and pushed your way up Hurricane Point. You never seem to mind slopping around in 10 kilometers worth of mud. Sometimes you object when I drag you into a one-hundred-and-five degree room for yoga, but only a little.

Body, you have been patient with me in every endeavor I have undertaken whether it be diving into the ocean, throwing myself out of an airplane or hiking up the back of Half Dome.

I am very lucky to have you. You have not betrayed me by developing cancer, debilitating diseases or other chronic ailments. You have equipped me with the energy to properly care for and enjoy my family. I have eyes that see, ears that hear, and a mind that works tolerably well (depending on which of my family or friends you’re asking.) Sure, there was that time you threw in a hamstring injury for giggles but now that that’s over I think we can be friends again.

I have to say that after 34 years I’ve got no complaints.