Let’s Talk Shit

One thing that we all know, is shit.
One thing that has changed is also shit, a lot of it.

There is something deeply humbling about growing older and realising that some of your biggest concerns are no longer existential.

They are intestinal.

You can spend an unreasonable amount of money on a holiday, plan the flights, book the hotel, make restaurant reservations, save places on Google Maps, figure out what shoes to wear, and then spend the entire morning wondering if you are going to poop. Especially those early morning flights, where you are in between day and night, unsure of when your poop is coming and where you’d be when you feel it.

I never thought this would become such an important metric in my life. But here we are. I have noticed something about myself over the years: the first day of travel and my digestive system are not friends. Funnily, a lot of my friends also feel the same.

I can go several hours without being able to poop.
And then, the moment I return home, something in my body recognises the surroundings and says, Oh. We're safe now. And suddenly, there it is. Knocking.

Almost offended that I made it wait.

I've tried to understand it rather than simply curse it. A change in environment. Different weather. Less water. More sitting. Different food. Different timings. A train journey. An airport. A hotel bathroom that doesn't feel like yours.

The body notices these things.
Apparently, the gut has opinions.

And a familiar bathroom is, for some reason, part of emotional security. There is something almost ridiculous about how much our bodies depend on familiarity. We think we are travelling. Our digestive system thinks we have been kidnapped. And if you happen to have gastritis, congratulations.

You don't just travel with luggage. You travel with a small pharmacy.

At this point, my travel essentials have become embarrassingly predictable.
Clothes? Check. Passport? Check. Gaviscon? Obviously. Digene? Naturally. Cremaffin? Absolutely.

Because apparently, I am no longer the sort of person who simply goes on a trip. I prepare for my gastrointestinal needs like I'm going into battle. There was a time when medicine was something you took when you were sick. Now some of us carry it around as emotional support.

And gastritis has a particularly annoying way of making you think about your stomach far more than you ever wanted to.
Is that a cramp? Is that hunger? Is that gas? Was that the food? Was it the coffee? Did I drink enough water? Why am I burping? Why haven't I pooped? Why do I suddenly need to poop? Should I carry antacids in my handbag?
At some point, eating stops being simply eating. It becomes logistics.

You start negotiating with your own digestive system. I'll give you something bland if you promise not to ruin my afternoon. And the worst part is that nobody really talks about this. We talk about travel as freedom. About discovering new places. About eating everything. About waking up somewhere unfamiliar and feeling alive.

Nobody talks about standing in a beautiful hotel bathroom at 8 a.m., wondering why your body has suddenly forgotten one of its most basic functions.

Nobody talks about how exciting a successful bowel movement can become.

Nobody tells you that one day, "I pooped normally today" will feel like a genuine achievement.

But perhaps that's the strange thing about growing up. You begin to understand that health isn't always about dramatic things. Sometimes it's the incredibly boring things. Sleeping properly. Drinking enough water. Eating food your stomach tolerates. Moving your body. Having a bowel movement without having to think about it.

And being able to leave the house without carrying half your medicine cabinet. The body is quietly doing hundreds of things every day that we never notice. Until one of them doesn't happen. Then suddenly, it occupies your entire mind.

Maybe that's why something as ordinary as poop has become so noticeably important. Because when everything is working, we don't think about it.

We just go.

And when it isn't, we realise how much of our comfort depends on things we never thought deserved our attention

And I have, apparently, developed a complicated emotional relationship with my bowel movements.

It's not glamorous. It's not Instagrammable. It's certainly not the part of travel anyone puts in the brochure. But maybe adulthood is accepting that the human body is occasionally ridiculous, occasionally inconvenient, and always more involved in our lives than we'd like to admit.

We spend so much of our lives trying to control everything.
Our schedules. Our careers. Our plans. Our holidays.

And then our stomach quietly reminds us:

You can book the flight.
You can choose the hotel.
You can plan the entire damn trip.
But you don't decide when you're going to poop.

And somehow, that might be one of the most humbling things about being human.