I have been thinking a lot lately about urination. Most of the time you go to the bathroom it is a thoroughly neutral, unmemorable act. Your body tells you it's time to pee. It starts as a faint feeling in your lower abdomen. Usually you just go find somewhere to potty and that's the end of it. You let it out, perhaps while playing Words With Friends, texting, or reading a book. Then you move on with life.
Every once in a while, you find yourself in a situation where you can't just go. The memorable situation for me was on the bus to cross-country meets in high school. We'd hydrate all day, then get on a 90-minute bus ride to Eaglecrest or Cherry Creek or wherever. The end of the ride was misery.
But the payoff was glorious. When you finally get to unleash after stewing about it for an hour or more, grimacing over it, sucking it up into your teeth, feeling that horrific burning/stabbing/throbbing in your bag,
it feels marvelous. I can't remember 99.9% of the pees I've taken but I could write books about the 0.1% most desperate defecations of my life.
And that's how it is. All the best things in life are better when you have to earn them, when you go through Hell to get to them, when there's pain before the payoff. The sweet just isn't as sweet without the bitter. If I've learned anything over the last couple years, it's that mobility to the same place is a hundred times better than stagnation at the same place.
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For those keeping score at home, we've now tackled
pooping,
vomiting, and peeing in the last couple months. Stay tuned for the bloodletting blog.
