A body full of potential

I recently ran into a friend of mine (while out shopping) and he asked me how my hand was. Now, this was because I recently had an unexpected visit to the accident and emergency department of my local hospital with a hole in my hand and whole bunch of carbon splinters decorating it. As it turns out, my hand really wasn’t so bad, but news spreads pretty quick (especially when folks think it’s gory) and he was worried.

“Look” I said, waving my hand under his nose, “it’s not so bad, I’ve just got a sticking plaster, that’s all.”
“Dur”, he said (please note the local dialect!) “you’re hard you are....but then I guess you’ve got to be, living in your body!”

Now, that got me to wondering about this body of mine and how good or bad it is. Now, I don’t mean how beautiful (or not) that it is – after all, like most women, there’s bits of my body I like (my nose is OK) and bits I don’t (who dished out those knees for goodness sake!) but what I mean is the working-ness of it (if there is even such a word!).

There are some times when I don’t like my body at all – the times when I wake up and it doesn’t work properly, the times when I have to lift my leg into the car rather than merely helping it in because its quicker and the times when it just hurts way too much and I think that it isn’t really fair. It’s those times when I guess you do have to be just a bit ‘hard’ to live inside it and put up with all those things you’d rather not.

But (and here’s the thing) most of the time I actually think my body is rather wonderful. My wiring in my legs is all wonky and when I was born my parents had no way of knowing if I would ever walk. Doctors are still amazed that I ever learned to do so and despite the fact that many things have gone wrong with it over the years, it recovers and mends and gets on with stuff. More than anything else this funny body has helped me reach for the stars and has achieved amazing things. It has allowed me to explore a future I never thought I would have and has allowed me to fulfil my dreams and even has potential to achieve even more in the years to come.

So, am I hard? Or has my body really helped make it rather easy for me?