I Have to Pee
an excerpt from ORCA, an illustrated, pocket-sized, collection of personal essays
I have to pee.
A lot.
Like, all the time.
Commuting by car can be a real challenge if I hit traffic. Or even if I don’t hit traffic. A pee stop will need to be factored into a two-hour drive. One-hour drive. Twenty minute drive. Sometimes I’m lucky and my bladder is a titanium vault and I can go a long distance without stops. Mostly I need the bathroom break.
I can pee before I leave my home or a restaurant or a movie theater and within ten minutes, the urgency could be borderline desperation mode. Any gathering or meeting, in public or a friend’s home, the first thing I must do when I arrive and the last thing I do before I leave, is pee.
I never have a problem giving a sample to my doctor. I have no issue peeing after sex. Which is great in that scenario. I can always pee “just in case” when I don’t feel the need, better safe than sorry. You may ask, perhaps I have a bladder issue that requires medical intervention? No. There is nothing wrong with my bladder. I simply have a highly sensitive alert system that makes my body believe my bladder is the size of a walnut.
It all became obvious after I had my first UTI in my late teens and then subsequently a bunch of UTIs throughout my life. That urgency that comes with a bacterial infection never fully abated even long after the infection did.
The women in my life that have had children tell me that pee urgency becomes a daily reality after growing a human inside their wombs that weighs down on the bladder. The pressure and/or pelvic prolapse is a real thing.
My I gotta pee definitely started from UTIs.
And my menstrual cycles.
When my progesterone levels bounce up and down, it’s open season on bowel evacuation. Period.
And now it’s my decreased estrogen.
Peri/menopause means the lining of my bladder is thinner and less elastic.
And what doesn’t help is coffee or a cocktail or the eight glasses of water I’m supposed to drink every day. I don’t drink booze regularly anymore. It’s hard for my body to process. One beer or one glass of wine has me breaking that seal within half an hour. I only have coffee in the morning. And thankfully I work from home because once that caffeine kicks in, I have to go every 20 minutes for an hour or two. It calms down eventually.
And water? Well, one glass in means roughly one glass out. Except for the times when I’m in a menstrual cycle or some hormonal episode in which my body decides rather than eliminate, it wants to retain all the liquid I have consumed for the entire day and store it in my midsection. Oh, I still have to pee. But now I’m Willy Wonka’s Violet Beauregarde—a giant, bloated blueberry with a leak.
I even have to pee while in the middle of writing this essay.
The worst part is when I’m out and about, away from home, trying to find a ladies room that is welcoming and clean and doesn’t require a purchase or asking an employee for a door code to get in.
I can usually find an open Home Depot or a Lowe’s or a Target or a grocery store outlet that has a public restroom that I can access off the freeway when I’m in my car, but this becomes a trickier proposal when in the middle of Los Angeles, sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 10 (that’s Interstate 10 for all the non-Southern California peeps), and big box stores are nowhere in sight.
Los Angeles city gas stations don’t typically offer bathroom access, because of humans, and when/if they do, who wants to use them? Disgusting doesn’t begin to describe them.
Japan has glorious public restrooms. Even their Shinkansen train lavatories, while not the prettiest or best smelling, are like a 5-star resort restroom compared to most U.S. public washroom spaces. Why can’t America have nice things? I know why. Because of humans. Because people who do bad, naughty things in restrooms have ruined it for the rest of us.
Americans have shitty bathroom practices.
And “god forbid” we ever try to instill suitable potty habits into our citizenry starting at a young age because some group of Americans would declare it “unconstitutional” and “government overreach” to teach their stinky children and themselves how to properly wipe their butts and clean up after their own messes for the benefit of all.
There are many times when I reach the water closet and my destrusor urinae muscle wants to activate before I get my panties down. If I had intended to actually sit on the seat, my busy bladder wouldn't allow me to put a toilet seat liner down. This is how my lean-over-the-seat method has made for strong quads and glutes. And yes, I wipe up if I happen to sprinkle onto the seat itself. Or the floor. My muck. My cleanup. I wish I could say the same for all the ladies. I see you, you pee-messy tarts.
My husband has the bladder of a camel. He can drink water all day, pee a couple of times, then pee before bedtime, sleep a solid seven to eight hours, cause he can sleep soundly too which means I loathe him, and not pee until morning. And when he does, it’s this strong, loud, healthy stream that seemingly goes on and on. A pee drilling for precious metals. A pee digging a hole for China. A pee for the ages.
I pee before bed, I pee in the middle of the night, sometimes twice, and I pee first thing in the morning. My pee amounts are sometimes big and sometimes a trickle, but they never sound like they could auger for oil or frack for gas. That’s only for the endless cisterns with attached hoses we call men.
I don’t leak when I laugh or I sneeze. Yet. I assume that’ll be another fabulous condition to look forward to as I age. But for now, I know where every available rest room or bush is and I know them well. My husband does too. And when I run into a Starbucks or Sprouts to utilize the facilities, I inevitably leave with another beverage. Because I need fluids. To stay hydrated. Hydration feeds the cycle. The cycle continues.
I have to pee.
A lot.