Dear President Trump,

I do have at least one more thought experiment for us to run through sometime but tonight I want to talk about something else. I was sitting chilling out in the car waiting for Laura to finish up in the grocery store and I got to thinking how fortunate I am to be able to sit there with the windows down and my eyes closed with no worries about being robbed or assaulted. Of course thinking about how unlikely these sorts of things are got me thinking about the “what ifs” associated with such things happening. It’s the “jelly donut” phenomena where if I tell you not to think of a jelly donut you’ll likely find you can’t think about anything else. Anyway, as I was thinking about different robbery/assault scenarios, the one that got to me was the idea of someone being really cruel and stepping on my glasses and crushing them. The idea of them being broken is terrible since I am quite impaired without them and can’t read anything but the largest print.

From here I thought about how when my eyesight was first starting to go bad it seemed like I should be able to will myself to see properly again. Unfortunately, I can’t fix my eyesight through any amount of trying or will power just as I can’t fix my aortal insufficiency or my big flat feet. These are things that just come with the territory of being me. Sure, I take my blood pressure meds regularly and watch my weight to minimize the wear and tear on my aorta, but there’s no getting around this pre-existing congenital condition or any of the others. And it’s all a crapshoot. You may have a great aorta but you might develop a cancer I’ll never get (say prostate cancer, for example) and our national healthcare coverage has to be flexible enough to deal with what ails me and the different things that ail you. Also, unless men want to swear off penetrative sex with women and having families that include children, they ought to shut up about paying for insurance that covers OB and maternity care. Women don’t get to will themselves to have pregnancies that don’t require medical care. So here we are. We all have bodies (and many of us have minds) that need healthcare sometimes and we all need to pony up so that everyone has adequate coverage.

May we all be safe and have safety nets.
May we all be happy with our healthcare coverage.
May we be as healthy as our individual bodies can be.
May we find meaning in lives characterized by care and love.

Sincerely,
Tracy Simpson