Skip to main content

Bowels And Relationships

I have had well meaning friends and family tell me at different times over the last few years that my yen for a relationship (the more conservative among them call this marriage) is not nearly strong enough or I would have been in one by now. I don't know about "strong enough" yen but I compare my need for a man (or the lack of one more appropriately) in my life to that of that of bowel movements (or the lack of them).

Say you are the kind of person that goes potty first thing every morning, as long as the job gets done you don't spend any time thinking about. In my world, that would be equivalent of the ordinary (and man-less) days where my many preoccupations with J, housework, job and hobbies leave little time to ponder what I am missing.
Being married or in a relationship is the emotional equivalent of regular, timely bowel movements in my mind.

Then there are days when one goes potty at the regular time but unaccountably, nothing happens. You are surprised at first and then there is annoyance but you figure you have the rest of the day to set things straight. Your days proceeds just as it would have otherwise done. Every once in a while, your mind might stray commode-wards. You may grab an extra cup of tea or coffee hoping to set things in motion but if something important like a deadline at work or a child's doctor's appointment comes along, you tend to forget about it. The next morning, things are back to normal at the potty and you feel greatly relieved.

Such are the days when my schedule is relatively light and I actually have the time to ponder my singleness. It is a slight annoyance to know that there is not a man in my life with a man being as necessary as a daily bowel movement, necessary to bring to life a sense of general well-being. The end of relationship (or marriage) is similar - you get used to having a man around everyday, having a certain "domestic" routine over a period of time when suddenly one day as J would put it, "potty goes for a toss" in the morning and you are left wondering what went wrong - was it something you ate for dinner, was it a matter of two people drifting too apart over a period of time. Life gets busy once more and I am back to feeling just fine.

Finally we have the acute constipation scenario. Clearly, this is more than a slight annoyance. Day after day, the early morning trip to the bathroom is not bringing forth the results. Indeed, successive other trips aided by warm beverages, laxatives and the like are not helping either. On such days, it is impossible not to think about one's bowels not matter what other pressing pre-occupations and concerns may be vying for attention. From being in the undistinguished foreground of the day, bowel movements come to dominate center stage. You have no desire or even capacity to enjoy the bounties of the day - be it good weather, a kudos from the boss or meeting an old buddy for lunch. None of that eases that horrible constipated feeling.

This would be my state of mind when it suddenly sinks that I have been single for a long time now, am so many years older, my daughter is going on seven and I have not been in a meaningful relationship for as long as I can remember. There is therefore a sense of needing (most urgently I may add) to have a bowel movement so things can go back to being normal, or having a man appear auto-magically in my life.

Just like a constipated person hates for bowel movement to be their life's predominant concern, I don't like the lack of a relationship being mine either - both conditions are equally aggravating and uncomfortable. You yearn to return to your first thing in the morning potty schedule or be in a domestic situation that involves a man in the house as the case might be.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Prescriptive recommendation: enema or laxative? :)

Popular posts from this blog

Part Liberated Woman

An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t...

Under Advisement

Recently a desi dude who is more acquaintance less friend called to check in on me. Those who have read this blog before might know that such calls tend to make me anxious. Depending on how far back we go, there are sets of FAQs that I brace myself to answer. The trick is to be sufficiently evasive without being downright offensive - a fine balancing act given the provocative nature of questions involved. I look at these calls as opportunities for building patience and tolerance both of which I seriously lack. Basically, they are very desirous of finding out how I am doing in my personal and professional life to be sure that they have me correctly categorized and filed for future reference. The major buckets appear to be loser, struggling, average, arrived, superstar and uncategorizable. My goal needless to say, is to be in the last bucket - the unknown, unquantifiable and therefore uninteresting entity. Their aim is to pull me into something more tangible. So anyways, the dude in ques...

Changing Pace

This blog has been a big part of my life for the last five years. Besides giving me the opportunity to connect with a number of interesting people and share my thoughts and ideas with them, it has been a form of daily meditation for me. No matter what the day threw my way, I made a very deliberate effort to find a little quiet time to write.The process of thinking about what to write and then the act of writing itself worked as an antidote to aggravations big and small. Five and half years ago, when I started Heartcrossings both my personal and professional lives left a lot to be desired for. The only real happiness I had was in being J's mother. While that was often enough to make me forget what I did not have, I sorely needed a third place to call my own and shape in the likeness of my dreams. This blog has been where there were no limits or constraints and that was absolutely exhilarating - it is the reason I have been able to nurture it for as long and as much as I have. A lot ...