Ex-Lax for the soul...

The realms of shit hold important mysteries. "Do your duty!" my mother used to tell our family dog and me in a loving voice when it came time for either of us to defecate. The eager to please dog did do and the rebellious boy did not do. Regrettably, this victorious not doing lead to lingering bouts of childhood constipation, stomach pumping, and other embarrassments, which quite possibly, along with a host of other life happenings, ascended into a kind of psychic constipation that held certain aspects of my life's output in a retentive clench well into adulthood. You see, the boy was afraid to let go of his shit. Since it was a part of him, losing his shit down that long dark system of pipes and sewers below the ground was not a place any part of him wanted to be. 

I certainly place no blame on mom. She had our best evacuation interests at heart. And as happens as we get to know ourselves, I am learning to unclench. You would never have found me anally retentive in any sense of the stereotype. My constipation does not demand straight edges and clean countertops. I hold on loosely (but don't let her go). 

Actually, since you're dying to know, I think my psychic constipation got married in a secret ceremony to my fear of heights at some point early early on. The result of this blessed union was an unconscious sense that every action I took on god's green earth could result in a swirling fatal fall into an acid whirlpool of a shit pit. And so just as the person with a real fear of flying magically, solipsistically believes that they control the destiny of their flight through worry and clenching and fellating fear, somewhere in my fantasy melon I was operating on the unspoken notion that my clench was what kept me from tumbling into the cosmos every second of the day. And that, children, is how sleeping beauty became his own worst energy vampire.

I'm not sure what I can hope to accomplish in broadcasting this surface skim of retro deep doo doo in the backwaters of the Internet. I do know that now that mom is gone, I'm naturally replaying all the old loops that subliminally guided certain choices and fates in the earlier part of my life. Luckily, I can see them from a distance and enjoy them for their comedy. I can report that a healthier headspace along with two scoops of psyllium husks in the morning has brought sunshine to my digestion and my outlook. 

That said, childhood habits do haunt us in ways our logical minds can barely comprehend. With the memory of my constipation imprinted on my soul, I still find myself yearning for creative floodgates to open in all the expected and unexpected ways. The pipes may be clean but are they beginning to rust? The most primitive facility used to smelt iron is a bloomery.