{"id":4779,"date":"2017-01-30T00:01:18","date_gmt":"2017-01-30T07:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mops.org\/?p=4779"},"modified":"2017-01-30T00:01:18","modified_gmt":"2017-01-30T07:01:18","slug":"sweet-relief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/sweet-relief\/","title":{"rendered":"Sweet Relief"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here I am once again, dancing around the kitchen, squeezing my insides with everything I\u2019ve got. I\u2019m up on my tippy toes then bending at the knees. Sweating, I think. Yes, sweating. Contorting. Panting. Anxious. All edges. And I have no idea why, not consciously anyway.<\/p>\n

So I keep at it, these staccato movements across the kitchen, choreographed to an urgency I can\u2019t quite place.<\/p>\n

And then it happens. My body finally gets my attention, and I realize in one stricken second that if I don\u2019t sprint to the bathroom, I will absolutely have an accident right there in front of my kids on the kitchen floor.<\/p>\n

I did once, you know. Pee my pants. In the car. I knew I had to go before I started driving, but I decided to override that familiar sensation because who actually has time to use the bathroom? And then there was an accident on the freeway and I peed in the car with a man in a semitruck next to me looking down into my passenger window.<\/p>\n

See ya later, dignity.<\/p>\n

Still, I seem to have forgotten the directions to the bathroom. One more load of laundry. One more stir in the pot on the stove. One more text message. One more sweep through the house for the flotsam and jetsam that spontaneously reproduce when I turn my head. One more item jotted in my planner. One more thing. One more thing. Just one more thing.<\/p>\n

Because the list is long and the time is fleeting and who in the world has the margin to attend to such trivial matters? And so I twist and corkscrew and prance and hold my breath and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze and suck air through my teeth. My kids are watching now. What is wrong with mom?<\/em>, they must think, as they watch me trot around the house.<\/p>\n

When I finally make it to the bathroom, it is barely in time, and I discover \u2013 maybe for the very first time \u2013 that I cannot keep going through life like a panicked show pony. If the people around me are ready and willing to take their potty breaks, if this is like a social norm, what is my deal? What if my refusal to pee isn\u2019t really about going pee at all? (Because when is it ever just about going pee or just about getting sleep or just about feeding ourselves?)<\/p>\n

My body is trying to flag me over to the side of the road, trying to call a time out, trying to help me sit the freak down. But I won\u2019t listen. Potty breaks are for the weak. I am a mother, for crying out loud. I must be strong. I\u2019ve got to hold it all together by holding it all in. There is no time for me to have needs.<\/p>\n

When I see what\u2019s really going on here, I see that this isn\u2019t new territory after all. This is just one more example of my refusal to be a human with a body and with needs. How utterly disgusted I am at some level that I cannot maintain perfect control. Not even over my own body.<\/p>\n

So I decide to do something absolutely radical. Subversive, even. I decide I will pee when I have to go pee. I will remind myself with every trip to the bathroom that I am not superhuman. I am not God. I am not infinite in what I can hold.<\/p>\n

And wouldn\u2019t you know? It\u2019s a real relief. If you do one thing this season, do this: pee. You could even say a prayer while you do. Something like: Hey God, here I am, on the<\/em> porcelain throne, feeling like a queen, attending<\/em> to my needs, to this body you gave me. Thanks<\/em> for holding the universe together while I take a<\/em> potty break. Given how much coffee I\u2019ll likely<\/em> be drinking in the next hour, I\u2019ll probably be<\/em> back to chat again soon. Stay awesome. Amen.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Leeana Tankersley is the author of \u201cBrazen\u201d and \u201cBreathing Room.\u201d She lives in San Diego, California with her husband, Steve, and their three kids: Luke (7), Lane (7), and Elle (4). Learn more about Leeana\u2019s work at<\/em> leeanatankersley.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"hd_cover_fall_2016_small\"<\/em><\/p>\n

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This article originally appeared in the Winter 2017 issue of\u00a0Hello, Dearest<\/em>. If you didn\u2019t get a copy and would like your own, you can\u00a0subscribe<\/a>\u00a0to get\u00a0Hello, Dearest\u00a0in your mailbox every season. If you subscribe, forward your receipt to\u00a0magazines@mops.org<\/a>\u00a0and we\u2019ll shoot a copy of the current issue in the mail to you for free \u2026 just because we like you.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here I am once again, dancing around the kitchen, squeezing my insides with everything I\u2019ve got. I\u2019m up on my tippy toes then bending at the knees. Sweating, I think. Yes, sweating. Contorting. Panting. Anxious. All edges. And I have no idea why, not consciously anyway. So I keep at it, these staccato movements across […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":4780,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,117],"tags":[585,397,256,226,986,217,539],"class_list":["post-4779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fun","category-wellness","tag-control","tag-funny","tag-honestly","tag-humor","tag-mom-humor","tag-silly","tag-wonder"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}