My body is not a temple. My body is a rental car, and I got a lemon.
When we incarnate, come to Earth for whatever purpose we do, we are given a body, like a rental car. Some people get brand new rental cars that work great, come with all the bells and whistles and a great maintenance plan. Some people get a clunker that barely works, or does not work at all. It sits in the garage, demanding large amounts of care and maintenance before it will do the most basic of tasks, like take us to the grocery store or God forbid, somewhere fun once in a while. Some people get rental cars that only work for a day, a week, a month, or a few years before they have to turn them back in and go back to Wherever We Come From. The whither-tos and the why-fors (as Bilbo Baggins would say) are hotly debated. Where do we come from? Why do we come here? What is the point? When faced with mortality, one must try to answer these questions. What do I want to do with my limited time here on the blue marble? If I die tomorrow, or next year, or live until I’m 80, the questions are the same. Why me? Why now? What am I supposed to do here? What do I want to do with this time I have? Some of us have more choices than others. We all have options in different measure. One person might be healthy but struggle with money. Another might have a great career but have a hard time with relationships. I have a decent brain and a crappy body. So I find myself in a narrow margin of the crossover between what I want to do, what I need to do, and what I actually can do. And that margin gets narrower with each passing year. In my attempt to find something I can do, I have had what my friends refer to as many “adventures.” I suppose they are. The adventures, the crazy off the wall things I do with my life, are an attempt to find a niche I fit into as well as my way of saying to this rental car, I’m going to do as much as I can while I can and make my life as interesting as possible while I can still walk and live without too many medical restrictions. Because none of us really knows how much time we have, and this is even more apparent when living with chronic illness.
I just got my second tattoo this week. My body is sensitive, so I do not do well with the process. My tattoo artist and friend is very patient with me and reassures me that I’m ok, I’m not being too obnoxious, that she understands. Bless her heart. As I write this, I am recovering from that process as well as some unknown abdominal pain that might be nothing or might be the thing that kills me. Or worse, somewhere in between.
I died of sepsis once. They found me and brought me back to life. I am grateful for that, and for the second chance in this beat up rental car, but the fear is still there. What if this is a tumor and I’m going to have to have surgery (one of my worst fears)? Currently I take nine pills per day, which is more than I would like, but pretty manageable. What if my health gets worse? At this point I think I would rather just die than have to be subjected to painful medical interventions, but it’s impossible to predict how I’ll react if I am presented with that choice. I did have some time, last time I narrowly escaped death, on that medical bed to think. As I lay there receiving life saving treatment, not one doctor or nurse told me what was going on. So I had some time to consider that idea that I might die there and what the meant for me. I was strangely ok with it, and only lamented that I would not get to spend more time with my friends, doing what I loved. (This was right before Covid, and little did I know that would happen anyway, at least for the next couple of years and as of this writing, who knows how much longer?) Finally I asked my ICU nurse, “Am I dying?” They looked shocked and reassured me that no, I was going to be ok. I wonder that I had to ask.
So why do I put myself through the unnecessary pain of a tattoo, when I spend the rest of my life avoiding pain? Because I’ve only got this rental car for a little while, and I want to decorate it. There’s no use in preserving it, keeping it “pure.” It was never that way to begin with, so I might as well have some fun with it before my time is up and this body is discarded. I wonder what I will think about all this when I get back to Wherever We Come From? I suppose I want my legacy to be that I did my best, was kind and loving more often than not, and made my space a little brighter. And had some fun along the way.
(Addendum - that abdominal pain ended up being my gallbladder, which I had to get removed.)
