Meditations on Peeing the Bed
Sometimes the best lessons are accidents.
To be a writer is to bare one’s soul. And bladder. I am nearly 24 years old and have not once but twice peed my pants in the past 14 months.
I forget the date of my first accident, but I recall that it was a crisp Autumn night. There are no twists and turns to this tale. It’s a simple story: I dreamt that I was peeing, something that I’d never done before. My dreams are often vulnerable, riddled with anxious texts and frightful flashbacks to the most embarrassing moments of my life. However, I had no familiarity with doing anything in my sleep beyond kicking and talking.
I awoke from my dream that fateful night.
And I was actually peeing.
Tears welled in my eyes as I made a mad dash to the bathroom. I finished the job and returned to my bedroom. After stripping my bed of all evidence, I laid atop my bare mattress. My thoughts ran in deflated circles. How could I have done this? Who does this?
It is devastating to shrink into the vulnerability of toddler-dom. I never wet the bed as a child—my only bad habit was sucking my thumb. By peeing the bed for the first time as a 20-something, I shrunk into a foreign, juvenile state. I allowed myself to retract into being a kid, giving myself a hint of forgiveness for something so out of my control.
Did peeing the bed heal my inner child?
Probably not, but being reduced to such a weak position restored a sense of innocence that I believe I lack. I faced a fate that I had never met before, and one that I should have encountered decades ago. I waddled into my roommate’s chamber the next day, looked her in the eyes, and sighed:
“Dude, I peed the bed at, like, 4 A.M.”
She helped me remake my bed, handling me with kid gloves as I tucked my mattress cover into a corner. I struggled to sleep that night, but these dreams no longer haunt me.
My second accident was in March. It was a Tuesday night that began at a nightclub in Midtown. A robotic feminine voice cried out, “It’s Tuesday, Baby, Tuesday,” periodically as I drank a self-made screwdriver—a combination of orange juice and vodka—under strobe lights. I’ve become familiar enough with “nightlife” to appropriately self-serve in order to avoid a pounding headache the next day. But on March 22, 2023, I failed myself.
One screwdriver became a few. Before I knew it, the night had cranked itself up to a bonafide capital N, capital O, Night Out. I eventually made my way into an Uber, up the elevator, and into my apartment. The next morning greeted me with a raspy voice and spinning head.
I healed slowly throughout the day, but this progress evaporated when I faced a harsh realization at 7:20 P.M. I texted my poor, poor roommate:
“i think i might’ve pissed my bed and not noticed until now i really cannot tell”
Humble. That is the adjective to best describe the aftermath of this incident. I betrayed myself with a nasty hangover and a case of the “scaries” from the night before, but even worse—I peed the bed. I nearly burst into tears at the realization that this was my second accident within six months.
Rather than feel like a kid, I felt like a disaster. My fragility was no longer child-like but that of a fully realized grown-up. There was no innocence to embrace now that I had done this twice. Freshly 23 years old, I was far away from the days of acceptable bed peeing. My ignorance only made this worse—I hadn’t even noticed until several hours after the inciting incident.
Instead of treating myself with a brief moment of tenderness, I took a deep breath and reflected. Despite my obliviousness, I knew that I was responsible for this, quite literal, mess. There was no excuse this time around. All of this, on a Tuesday?
I needed to change. Not only my sheets, but myself.
Life lessons appear in the quirkiest shapes. Sometimes, we learn to treat ourselves with tenderness. Other times, we grow aware of who we are and what we’ve done. I have not gained strength or power from my embarrassing incidents; however, I’ve gained mindfulness. I’ve tried traditional meditations, but few methods have taught me as much as these disasters. When reduced to this primal state, my humanity kicked in and I questioned myself. Was I the product of my actions? Or, were these accidents only a mere bump in the long road of life?
These moments made me cautious. Now, I look both ways before I drink another screwdriver. I never forget to “try one more time” before I go to bed, get in the car, board a plane, or head out for the night. I’m a different person than I was a year ago, and I owe this partially to these little-t traumatic nights.
Perhaps, the third eye is the bladder.