I am grateful for the many ways in which my fragile body gets to be cared for in this world. So much of it is on account of privilege and chance, opportunities that are given to me for no particular reason outside of the random circumstances that had me be born where I was and raised how I was raised and exposed to the environments and events and people and happenstances that have brought me to where I am in life right now.

This morning I had to deal with a mildly stressful situation, immediately after which I had a booking at a local physio centre to use their infrared sauna space. As I stepped into that warm (67° C) wooden box and started to let go of the morning’s stress, I thought to myself “this is literally a container of care”. Self care? Sure, there was an element of self providing this care – I anticipated that I’d need this, I made the booking, and I showed up. It was me that sat in that box for the next 30-40 minutes without a screen to entertain/distract me, just me and my body and my mind and my breath. And I sweated my stress away. Very self care. But there was so much other care involved too. The staff at the place setting everything up to make sure the sauna was hot and ready when I arrived, putting out fresh towels for me to use, the admin around my appointment, all of that. The centre providing this service to begin with. What a world I get to live in – where people look after each other and get to have jobs around that. Serving one another and making a living. Lovely.

Then I went home to further self care, a cooking sesh. And then I left home to go to another container of care – the dentist. This was a new dentist, someone I hadn’t seen before, and gosh even for someone who regularly gets check ups and cleans, this appointment was PAINFUL. The dentist was very thorough and seemed very good at his job, but I was losing my breath and practically on the verge of tears from the pain my mouth was in. I have to go back next week to get new fillings. There will be needles involved. Thinking about it is taking my breath away again. But despite all the pain, it truly is a container of care, not unlike the sauna space. Self care sure, it is me making the appointment and showing up to it etc. But people devoted years of their lives to studying dentistry and then decades practicing and refining their expertise to get to a point of offering me the service that I got today. What a beautiful world I get to live in, where I get to benefit so personally and so meaningfully off a stranger’s labour, and he offers it willingly, with so much integrity, even at the risk of alienating me by causing me pain. But it is pain that is offered for my benefit, pain I consent to because I am a responsible adult.

*Cries in responsible adult*

And now I’m at my computer, in my office, at my desk, surrounded by plants and other items that are personally meaningful to me, in another container of care. I can hardly begin to unpack the layers upon layers that have gone into me having this space and getting to practice a nightly routine of writing out my thoughts into this online journal. Soon I will sleep, in a mattress that consistently gives me good sleep, with a husband and a cat whose presence signals safety and comfort and belonging to my body, on account of which I will most likely be rested and prepared for my day tomorrow.

I have so much to be grateful for.