Story #4: God Pees in the Shower

A story about how the essence of everything is the absence of everything.

Life has a way of delivering lessons with the subtlety of a freight train, barreling toward you while you stand there, daring it to stop before it pummels you. In an ideal world, wisdom would be handed out by an angel with a clipboard, “Here’s what you missed in class. No need to re-take the exam. You passed and can move on with your life.”

When I turned thirty, every ignored warning and delayed reckoning came screaming into the station all at once. Their rusty, mangled carts were driven by an angel who might as well have been Joan Rivers, squawking out the window, “You forgot something, honey!”

My breakdown began after I was fired from another office job. I was in the throes of yet another breakup, my mentor passed away, and I was living with well-meaning friends who were navigating their own chaos: career changes, a toddler, and second baby on the way. I was trying to cobble together a life inside a shoebox of a bedroom, unsure if I was building something or hiding from everything I didn’t know how to deal with.

The bedroom served as a sun-filled purgatory between the life I wanted and the wreckage I created trying to get there.

It wasn’t just the chaos around me I needed to work through but the mess inside of me: a screaming vortex of self-doubt, shame, and bone-deep exhaustion that clung to me like stale cigarette smoke from a bowling alley.

The circumstances or how I felt weren’t anything new. I’d been living out of sync most of my life, exchanging what felt right for what kept me accepted, invited, hired, or wanted. I knew how to disappear into what other people needed. But now, with everything stripped down to silence and sunbeams on the carpet, there was no one to perform for, just the wreckage and the question of who I’d be if I stopped abandoning myself.

When you don’t know what to do with yourself, you reach for anything that feels familiar or a little less cruel. Drinking lost its edge. Road trips lost their spontaneity. So, I leaned into the small and quiet ways of being useful, slipping into a part of myself that didn’t need to be anyone.

My contribution to the little commune involved occasional cooking and wrangling the kid who had the tenacity of a New York real estate developer. At two, she spoke in full sentences and had an uncanny ability to stand her ground, as though she were negotiating a high-stakes merger. The only things that disarmed her were the fact she pronounced “juice” as “yuce” and came up to my knees.

Changing her diapers was an act of mutual humiliation. “Look,” I told her one morning as I struggled to clean up her shit, “You gotta start pooping in the toilet. We can’t keep doing this.”

I don’t know if I was talking to her or reckoning with the part of me that kept excusing adults who still shit in their pants. I wanted to reason with her, which seemed fair at the time.

When her mother asked her, “How about the power of yes?” she fired back with, “How about the power of NO?”

I liked her. We argued well together. But I knew this much: she was still learning how to learn, and sometimes the tone of the lesson matters more than the lesson itself. When it came to potty training, I tried to make it fun, assuming if she felt safe, she might actually succeed. Freedom was the secret weapon. Fewer barriers and fewer clothes meant better odds, so I let her spend the day naked.

Toddlers were learning sphincter control, anyway. They hadn’t yet discovered the mental discipline it takes to sweat, clench and pucker your way to a bathroom.

By midday, the scream came, a high-pitched wail signaling the time had come. Though she tried, I arrived to a crime scene of her own making. Her little face, a mask of panic and pride. I wanted to laugh but feared it would only shame her into wearing a diaper for the rest of her life. As I cleaned up her valiant effort, I couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.

It wasn’t just about the poop—this moment was a perfect metaphor for my life: standing in other peoples’ shit, wondering why they just couldn’t… be consistent, communicate clearly, move through life in a logical way. If I had to do it, why didn’t they? Why did they get to be messy?

If this was The Divine’s way of bringing me lessons, their sense of humor was on par. They were probably on the other side of the veil saying,

“What’s with this girl?”

“Same situation, different person?”

“Change the fucking channel already. We’ve seen this episode!”

“I know! Let’s give her a toddler!”

“Yeah, yeah… give her the toddler! Maybe she’ll learn to set some boundaries.”

Setting boundaries felt like using a Pilates reformer for the first time: confusing, humiliating, and requiring an instructor who wasn’t exhausted by my inability to sit taller.

I spent so much time accommodating others that I lost the muscle strength to remain steady. My croissant-shaped spine fought every stretch upward, tempting me to slip back into the comfort of shrinking. Conflict terrified me. Rationalizing bad behavior felt easier than confronting it, and I convinced myself that enduring it was just a way to build tough skin.

I grew accustomed to hearing, “You’re smart, you can handle it.” Each time I accepted those words, I allowed lines to be crossed and let them quietly erode my self-respect. By the time I was thirty, I could enmesh myself to anyone with the grip of fascia, blurring the lines of what was mine to carry. I didn’t know how to say, “What the fuck’s your problem, get your fuckin’ shit together” without sounding cruel or cold.

Desperate to untangle myself from the lies I’d lived by, I threw myself into meditation, exercise and clean eating, hoping to claw my way out of the pit. I hoped the mindfulness would help me escape the endless noise in my head, or at least help me find the exit ramp off the mental freeway I’d been speeding down for years. Meditation was like staring into an abyss; the silence broken by the cacophony of every time I felt abandoned, overlooked, misunderstood and talked down to. The pain wouldn’t float by like clouds. It sat energized, like static ready to crack. I tried to let it move through me, but those fuckers lingered.

The epiphany came slowly. My pain wasn’t just the result of other people’s actions, but my perception of them. I didn’t know how to ask for clarity without sounding like a robot. I had a fear of being seen as difficult or abstract.

Silence does something, and not the kind people chase with meditation apps and herbal tea. But the kind that stretches out like a long, dark hallway and dares you to walk through it without flinching. No noise. No distractions. No applause. Just the weight of your own breath and the question you’ve been dodging your whole life.

Who am I without someone to impress?

I sat in it. Day after day. Sunbeams and dust and nothing to prove. Then one afternoon, it hit. Right in the center of my chest. A phrase. Not in my voice, but coming from somewhere I recognized anyway.

“You are light.”

It cracked something open. Not all at once. I was too afraid for that. The pain held it in place, like hands gripping the edges of a broken rib. But the voice didn’t stop. It just got louder, and the more I sat with it, the more it worked its way through me.

A pinprick of gold light began to emit from my heart center. It was small but bright and steady. Tears began to fall, slow and restrained at first, as if my body didn’t want to make a scene. But the more I let the warmth radiate and the words resonate, the more I unraveled. The sobs poured out so fast I clutched my chest and gasped for air. My arms wrapped around myself; I doubled over, letting the pain out. This wasn’t a breakthrough. I wasn’t “finding myself.” I was allowing her to rise, to exhale, and quietly breach just above the surface.

I never grew up in the Quiet. Everyone I was around always kept their lives “busy” with work, obligations and vices.

I think most people are terrified of The Quiet. Not because it’s boring, but because that’s where the truth lives and they’ll do anything to keep from hearing the question they’ve been avoiding: Now what? Because deep down, we don’t know what we actually want.

That’s why meditation was cool. I could exist in a space that was totally mine, one that often felt like a whole new planet. The Quiet became the only place that made sense. My anxiety was met with a tea party. My low self-worth was greeted with warmth. My pain was met with safety. Once all of those feelings were cradled, I could allow myself to imagine and bring thoughts to life. Anything was possible in The Quiet. It was teaching me to let difficult moments pass without resistance, gave volume to my intuition, and, most importantly, taught me how to embrace discipline.

My undiagnosed ADHD always made discipline seem like it was a superpower reserved for people who probably used physics in their daily lives—not floundering people like me. I knew I was driven and capable of completing an idea from beginning to end, but no one ever taught me how to keep going when things got frustrating. One speed bump, and suddenly I’d need to do ten loads of laundry, detail my car, or start a new hobby. Discipline was painfully dull, and I could’ve traded a kidney for a quick dopamine hit. Every day was a battle between the part of me that craved comfort and the part that wanted to be better.

Slowly though, I realized discipline wasn’t about being rigid or perfect. It was about showing up and working through frustration. For the first time, I wasn’t running when things were challenging; I was sitting with them and learning from it. Discipline wasn’t boring. It was fucking freeing.

But even with the healing wounds and newfound quiet, something was still churning under the surface. It was soft but had a hum that buzzed just under my skin, like an internal nagging that made even the thought of complacency feel unbearable. It wasn’t the kind restlessness that agitated me into swiping on dating apps or impulse-buying in the way that anxiety needs release. I wasn’t convincing myself in or out of anything or creating scenarios that don’t exist in the way that spiraling leads you down rabbit holes. I simply knew I was missing a step. Something hadn’t clicked. So, I did what I always do when I can’t figure something out. I cleaned. I organized my books. Folded clothes. Cleaned the closet, my desktop, fridge, cabinets, car, dog until I had nothing else to clean except my resume.

My dream job was to work for an outdoor lifestyle company in the marketing department. I don’t know why being a cog in the corporate wheel meant so much. I hated how I never knew what people were talking about. Their jargon sounded like a foreign language I could never pick up on. I’d laugh to myself at how idiotic they sounded, so serious and curated. Outside of that specific environment, their words meant nothing. It took everything in me not to shout, “Ah, WHO FUCKIN’ CARES! THIS IS FUCKIN’ STUPID!”

I hated how inefficient businesses were. There were too many interruptions. Too much micromanaging. Too many pipelines. Too many delays. It killed me to stretch twelve hours of work into forty. And yet, I thought being a part of it would validate me.

If I could just get a job in corporate America, have benefits, maybe people would take me seriously. Maybe I’d be normal.

I even tried bargaining for a job.

I promise, if you provide me a job, I’ll stay in line.

Being a cog in corporate America was the only way I knew how to appear functional, because that’s what my family and the society I was a part of deemed acceptable.

I fired off seventy-five unanswered resumes along the coast of California. I never received a rejection letter or “we’ve received your application,” just five months of silence. When I gave up, a part of me was relieved that door was closed. I needed to accept I wasn’t made for sitting under florescent lights and weaving through bureaucracies and mourn the part of me who was so desperate to appear normal.

The internal hum softened, but it was still there, fluttering just beneath the surface.

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I wanted to prove to myself I knew what I was doing.

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I wanted to prove that the marketing ideas previous employers rejected weren’t just good, they were ahead of their time. I wanted to be the face of something. To build something. To show up in the world with purpose.

I began sorting through my junk drawer of a career path: piano teacher, admin assistant at a doctor’s office, admin assistant for a wealth management company, research coordinator in a neuropsychology lab, research coordinator at a medical device company (penile implants, to be exact), marketing coordinator, sales associate, bartender, private cook, and… nanny.

I wasn’t exactly a poster child for long term commitment, especially since I was fired from a good number of those positions. I continued to narrow down all of my experiences to the most essential parts.

I laid the pieces out. The jobs, the bosses, the parts I loved, the parts I ran from. I knew I had the makings of something solid and it was time to build my own house, but I didn’t know how to start.

In the background, I could feel my dad guiding me. He wasn’t telling me what to do. He was quietly encouraging me to pick up each piece, lay it down, and trust the tools that were already inside me. Every time I hesitated, I could hear him say, “I trust your judgement.”

I broke everything down and let the pieces breathe. Then I tied every lesson together, took everything I wanted to be and threw a Hail Mary.

Fuck it. Fate could figure out the rest.

And that low hum just beneath the surface finally shut the fuck up. My world went still.

Then it happened. In the shower, as the water pounded against my skin, a decade of missteps and muddled experiences fell into place: Catering.

It didn’t feel like one of those fourteen-day hyper-fixations or another random career pivot. It felt like something handed to me by The Divine. Never mind that I had no formal culinary training, or business experience, or money. I had resilience, resourcefulness, and questionable credit. What else did I need?

Starting from scratch meant surrendering control. I couldn’t romanticize the journey or let the unknown hold me back. Owning a business seemed like it was going to be the kind of thing that would figure itself out. And catering seemed like one of those things I’d pick up as I went.

With the pieces laid out, the blueprint started to appear. This path wasn’t about narrowing myself into a box. It was about giving myself permission to explore, to try, to create. All I had to do was say yes.

I called everyone I knew who might have advice on starting a catering company, including an acquaintance who was already in the game. His big tip? “Build a website.” It sounded daunting, especially for someone whose catering menu would consist of muesli, salad dressing, Bolognese, steamed broccoli and optimism. But what the hell. If someone died from eating my food, I could always add front-end developer to my resume.

With no money to hire help, I committed myself to a rigid Ikea table and chair until the website was done. Did I know anything about web design? Of course not. But I liked the internet and design, so how hard could it be?

I sat there, hunched over like a tech-challenged monk, chipping away. Every detail, color, layout, felt monumental; like the fate of my business hinged on Helvetica or Times Roman. Every time I second-guessed myself, I reminded myself: This isn’t just a website. It’s the beginning of my freedom. Building the website wasn’t just about saving money.

It was about proving to myself that I could finish something without falling apart.

Opportunities began to appear, small cracks of light cutting through the dense fog of uncertainty. My roommate, a personal trainer, mentioned one of her clients who needed help with meal prep. I nodded along, listening like it was casual but my gut began to flutter. I started to get ideas about how I could help.

My intuition whispered, ‘You can do this.’ I ignored it. Was it not there in the previous homes with The Doctor, The Producer, the times I was fired? How could it want me to go back? What was wrong with it?

As the conversation continued, the whisper got louder, ‘No really, you can really do this.’

I remained silent. I didn’t want to get involved in someone else’s mess. But then, something borrowed my voice, and the words slipped out, “I can do that.”

And just like that, I was back in private homes. This time, though, the game changed. I wasn’t there to be someone’s emotional punching bag. I wasn’t there to clean up messes that weren’t mine. I was there for me. To learn, grow, and build something at my own pace.

I didn’t have any answers, but for the first time, I didn’t need them. Instead of clinging to the belief that I had to know everything, I trusted I’d figure it out. I spent so much of my life starting things and never finishing, half-assing my way to mediocrity. I’d let ambition spark but never burn. This time, I wasn’t running from the ghost of my failures; I was hunting that fucker down and making it a part of my clean-up crew.

Life didn’t stop delivering its lessons with a freight train, but I finally learned to wait on the platform. Sure, there were times I got cocky and played another round of chicken, and of course, I got my ass handed to me. But for now, I was content playing it safe. I wasn’t trying to outrun the train anymore. I was letting it carry me forward.

Starting a catering business wasn’t the end of the chaos but the beginning of another track; one with new curves, new stops, and no map. I knew where I was headed. But the route was up to the angels.

I hopped on, enjoyed the ride, and built the track as we went.

Credits:

Narrated by: Elaine T.

Sound Engineer: Max Lee

Written by: Anonymous Fork

Follow us on instagram: @the.anonymousfork

Anonymous Fork's Substack is a reader-supported publication.

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