nature calls

Pooping reminds me of my mortality. 

I know this is weird, but stay with me. As a very articulate and feminine woman, sometimes I get embarrassed when I use the bathroom. How could someone so elegant and beautiful expel something so...gross?

Then it got me thinking. Women and girls are taught to distance themselves from their humanity. Jokes such as "girls don't poop" (something I heard constantly in high school) reinforce the idea that our natural bodily functions are shameful. 

I never pooped at school for fear of being made fun of. Most of the time, the girl's restroom never smelled like a restroom, but a mix of perfume and weed. And the few times it did, others would loudly make it known how disgusting they found it. 

Women are socialized to be dolls. Hairless, blemish free, and always smelling like dessert. To embody womanhood, we must abandon our humanity. Abandoning our connection to nature and embracing an existence that prioritizes performing instead of being. Our bodies no longer living, breathing miracles, but customizable clay that we force into unsustainable shapes.

It's even in the idiom itself. Nature calls. This great consciousness that we are part of is calling out to us. Reminding us of our animal nature every time we use the bathroom. YOU (yes, you) are an animal! Sophisticated? Yes. But at the end of the day, we are still bipedal apes.

We're all going to die one day, so it would be fruitful for us to remember that spending one's life in an endless pursuit of thinness, youth, or whatever is a waste of time.

So every time your body reminds you that it is alive, remember that you are more than clear skin and a number on a scale.

 

XOXO,

Michaela