"The Day My Son Peed in My Mouth"

Eh-HEM.

So a certain friend of mine has been encouraging me to enter a certain writing contest. I finally gave in, figuring that I spend enough time writing blogs anyway. Why not name one an "essay" and see if I might win something for it?

I was instructed to write about the most important day of my life. And somewhere between my stressful day and lack of sleep, this is what I came up with:

The Day My Son Peed in My Mouth

In thinking about the most important day of my life, the day that most stands out in my memory as a key turning point, why is it that a little sprinkle of urine is what comes to mind? Shouldn't I be thinking of something more significant, like being diagnosed with my chronic illness, graduating from high school, getting married, giving birth to my son? Those moments are the moments we recount time and again, the moments we scrapbook about, minus the colonoscopy pictures taken to determine that I do indeed have Crohn's disease. But even those photos come out to play on the rare occasion--when a party's conversation lulls and I've gotten enough margaritas in me to feel comfortable passing around evidence of my inflamed inner-workings.

Clearly, I have never been one to adhere to any type of norm, so my most significant, life-altering moment isn't one you'll find documented, framed, and hung in my hallway next to the pictures of my husband and I trying to look cool doing our superhero poses. No, my moment took place on a day like any other. Without any big announcement or fanfare, or even the tiniest sprinkle of confetti. Really, the moment came and went in an instant. My son, during a routine diaper change, peed in my mouth.

Back up several years. Think the 80's in all its side-ponytail-glory. I was quite the dramatic child. The one that would beg for my dad's attention anytime he had the video camera out. I would prance and dance and wear crazy pants just so people would notice me. My life was a constant, never-ending performance. And that theatrical theme carried on into junior high. Then high school. I was honored with the leading lady roles in just about every single one of the plays our drama class put on. I would memorize my lines to perfection, and embrace my transformation into Anne of Green Gables, or Esther, Judy Garland's gal in "Meet Me in St. Louis". I was filling some big shoes, whether tap or jazz or stilettos, and loved every waking moment. The cheers of a crowd applauding just for you. A standing ovation on the night you were brave enough to attempt the highest high note without switching into your falsetto. Really, most audience members overlook any voice crack if you smile wide enough.

But the result of my Broadway-an aspirations was a life that almost seemed fake to me. I knew how to switch from role to role--daughter to sister to best friend to girlfriend to wife and now to mom. How many times did I walk into a room, crazy pants and all, and enter as merely a version of myself? Did anyone, does anyone, know the real me? I never lied about anything. I never pretended to be someone that I wasn't. I just kind of floated through the years playing all of my roles, but secretly and desperately wishing that I knew how to make that life my own. I knew it would require some kind of drastic change, a wake-up-call of sorts.

Why not wake up to a steady stream of warm urine trickling down my face? Amidst the whirlwind of dating then engagement then marriage then pregnancy then actually delivering a baby, I became a mother. A role I had sought my whole life, but couldn't really enjoy without feeling like I was actually the one playing it. Talk about your out-of-body experience. Try an out-of-body lifetime.

Until I failed to cover a flailing penis that chose to unload its pee-pee on me-me. The moment that salty sweetness hit my lips, I found myself rudely awakened to the fact that my life was different from the one it was when I fell asleep. I'm not sure what happened to the little side-pony-tailed, gap-toothed blonde whose entire existence was spent writing song lyrics in the shower, on the toilet, or wherever creativity chose to strike. In her place, I found a desperately tired mother whose stomach was still the size of a bowling ball, and had seemed to lose all sense of fashion the moment she took a certain little earthling home from the hospital. I can remember that moment as clearly as if it happened this morning, never mind that I got peed on during today's sunrise diaper change, too.

But at that particular moment, I knew I had a choice. I could choose to grab for the perfect performance version of myself, ever seeking to impress those around me no matter how tiring. Or I could embrace this older, foreign woman with breast milk stains and vomit on her wrinkly maternity shirt and let myself really laugh for once. I chose to laugh.

Over a year later, I'm laughing still, enjoying every waking moment of my hum-drum, but perfectly abnormal life. At least now I know it's my life to live. Poopy colonoscopy pictures and all.