My dear body,
My dear self,
I am sitting with you now,
Not to fix you,
Not to question you,
But simply to be with you,
Fully,
Honestly and without turning away.
For so long you have felt like something I needed to understand,
Something I needed to manage,
Something I needed to keep up with,
As though you were always one step ahead of me,
Changing the rules without warning.
I remember being told,
You have a complex body,
Now that's such a simple sentence and yet it held so much weight,
It explained everything and nothing all at once.
Complex?
Hmm,
As if you're a puzzle,
As if there's something to figure out,
To solve,
To finally make sense of.
But the truth is,
You're not a puzzle,
You are a living,
Breathing,
Adapting being,
Who once has faced more than most,
One who has been asked to adjust in ways that cannot be seen from the outside.
You have carried me through surgeries,
Through the surrender of letting others rebuild parts of you,
A knee replaced,
A shoulder reshaped,
Not as a failure,
But as a continuation,
As a way forward.
You have held steady through moments where my heart chose its own rhythm,
Fast,
Unpredictable,
Untamed,
And even in those moments of fear,
You did not give up on me.
You have navigated vision that doesn't always feel certain,
Eyes that hold both sight and strain,
Fragility and resilience woven together,
You have breathed through tightness,
Through that quiet magic when air doesn't come easily and still,
You have found your way back to breath again and again.
You have endured irritation,
Discomfort,
The daily persistence of small pains,
That don't always get acknowledged,
The kind that don't stop life,
But shape it quietly.
And then,
Then there were the moments that shook everything,
The clots in the lungs twice,
Uninvited,
Unexplained,
Moments where the body became something uncertain,
Something that could no longer be predicted or fully trusted in the way I had once hoped.
And yet,
Even then,
You carried me through.
I don't think I have ever fully stopped to honour that.
Not just what you've been through,
But how you've responded.
You didn't collapse into defeat,
You adapted,
You adjusted,
You kept going in the only way you knew how.
And I see now that I haven't always been gentle with you,
There have been moments of frustration,
Moments of questioning,
Moments where I wished you were simpler,
Easier,
More predictable,
Moments where I compared you to other bodies and wondered why ours had to be different.
For that,
I am sorry.
I am sorry for the impatience.
I am sorry for the times I focused only on what felt wrong,
Instead of everything that was still working,
Still trying,
Still holding me.
And because even in your complexity,
You have never stopped showing up for me.
You have woken up each morning.
You have carried me through each day.
You have allowed me to feel,
To experience,
To live,
Even when it hasn't been easy.
And that matters more than I ever truly said,
So here is what I want to offer you now.
A different kind of relationship,
Not one based on control,
Or expectation,
Or disappointment,
But one that is rooted in listening.
I want to learn your rhythms,
Not force them.
I want to respect your limits,
Not resent them.
I want to trust that even when things don't make sense,
You are still doing your best in ways I may not fully understand.
You are not working against me.
You are not working for me in the only ways you can.
And perhaps instead of asking why is my body like this,
I can begin asking what does my body need from me today?
Softness,
Patience,
Tenderness,
Care,
Maybe even gratitude,
Not in a forced or performative way,
But in an acknowledgement.
Because this body,
Complex as it may be,
Has held my entire life within it.
Every memory,
Every breath,
Every moment of love,
Joy,
Fear,
Growth.
This body is not separate from me.
It is me.
And I am allowed to meet it with kindness.
Not just on the good days,
But on the hard ones too.
From this moment forward,
I will try.
I will try gently,
Imperfectly,
Honestly,
To walk beside you instead of pushing against you.
To notice you.
To care for you.
To speak to you with the same compassion I would offer anyone else I love.
Because you deserve that.
You always have.
And no matter how complex this journey becomes,
We are still here.
Together.
Still breathing.
Still living.
Still finding our way.
With love.
With patience.
With deep and growing understanding.
Me.
