Betrayal

Well, I think today I want to talk about what it's like when your body begins to betray you. How often do we think about our bodies? You know, when everything is going well. Let's picture this scene: you're sitting in your chair and decide that the box of cookies you bought yesterday would hit the spot right about now. So, you get up from your chair to walk to the kitchen. Actually, you have the thought that you're going to get up from your chair. You probably don't even consciously register the thought, but somewhere in the recesses of your brain a little neuron sends a little jolt of electricity to your muscles letting them know that, HEY, it's time to get up from the chair. Except, for some reason, that little process that happens, oh I don't know, a gazillion times a day, doesn't work this time. So, you find yourself puzzled at the fact that you intended to get up from your chair, you fully expected that by now you not only would be up from your chair, you should in fact be in the kitchen reaching for that box of Mallomars. But you aren't.

Hmm. Let's just say that it's disturbing. Because, it's not that big of a deal that you aren't already happily eating your cookies, but it is a very big deal that your body, which you normally take for granted, has not done what it was supposed to do. And, while you are safely ensconced in your living room, now suddenly you have doubts about your body. It has betrayed you once; when will it happen next? When you're crossing the street perhaps? How do you explain that to people? Now let's picture that you are in fact preparing to cross the street. Let's even draw the picture a little finer. It's your lunch hour and you're with a group of your co-workers. The walk signal has started blinking and the other people in your group have already started bolting across the street. But you hesitate because suddenly, the image from the night before flashes in front of you. What if your body fails you again at that very moment? The odds, you think with the rational part of your brain, are slim. But it doesn't really matter what the odds are. Your body has betrayed you once, and you know in your heart of hearts that it will betray you again. Perhaps not at that very moment, but sometime.

Now you look up, your co-workers are already across the street, the light has stopped blinking and is a steady, don't walk red. And you can see the puzzled looks on their faces, why didn't you bolt across the street? What's wrong?

Everything, you think, everything.