Dear Erythrocytes

Dear Erythrocyte,
Good Being,
In the days of your youth, do you ever feel like you were plunged into the unknown?
Do you feel prepared for the jump when you get into the heart's chambers, and it pulls and pushes?
Do you ever doubt your flexibility when moving through even the most minute lumens?
I am asking because I have thought of you often.
Every day of your life, you carry out the same function, traveling through the body, sometimes slowly or quickly, because someone is in a hurry. And I wonder, on my runs in the morning, do you get injured? I bet you want to get far away from my foot at those times! But how can you when gravity pulls you down?

There was a time I was trying out a vegetarian lifestyle without consulting you. Internal medicine rotation later showed my hemoglobin to be 7.2. I was so scared. I thought I was going to die! The weird part was that I didn't feel any different living with a hemoglobin of 7.2. You had somehow adapted nicely to the situation. You noticed I took those iron pills until the heme levels were normal.

Do you ever feel like keeping some oxygen to yourself?
How did you feel when you lost your nucleus?
Is it just up to fate? Did you ever get to decide? Or you were programmed right off from the stem cell.
If you had a choice, would you still take the Red?
I have thought about you often because I admire you greatly. You know precisely that you have about 120 days to live, and in those days, you do philanthropic tourism around the body. WOW..is it a wonder you die so quickly. Could it be to save you from spilling out secrets you fused from the tiny capillaries of the glomerulus or because you work so hard you wear yourself out?
Whenever the case, you are my hero with a red cape.