Once upon a time, I wet the bed.

I wasn’t much of a bedwetter. Not really.

Which is hard to believe considering the bladder problems I’ve always had.

It wouldn’t have mattered, either way; my family doesn’t talk about such personal things, choosing instead to overlook them with polite parentheticals. Should an uncomfortable topic arise in conversation, we are likely to smile and pass it off with an “Is that so?”, but not in an encouraging way.

Inflection is key in asking a question without looking for an answer.

It’s an art form, actually.

Likely, had it been an issue, they simply would have spent a fortune on new sheets and bed spreads, and I would never have been the wiser…except—that awful guilty feeling you have waking up in your own, you know, pee.

Or urine, if you prefer. But, let’s be honest, there’s no way to talk about this without using one of those two words, so buck up.

I do, however, recall one incident in which I did wet the bed.

A family member had died, as they tend to do on occasion, and we had a house full of company, and not just random-hitchhiker company, either. This was strange-relative company which, as you know, is far, far worse because they come spending the night with a sense of entitlement.

I had given up my room to some random cousin-couple (read that as you wish), and was crammed in the front guest bedroom, where no one, not even Day or Night, or Guests, ever went. I have never understood the convention of giving up your own room for company. Is it because it’s a noticeable sacrifice that you hope makes your company feel, at least, a little bad? Or, Is it because you know you never clean the guestrooms and instead, they become extended closets, and so you’d be embarrassed to have other people see it?

I guess we’ll never know.

I was uncomfortable all night long, and when I woke up, it was of little surprise to see that I’d wet the bed but good. A change of sleep patterns is indicative of increasing bedwetting chances. If nothing else, this room would get cleaned now.

U.L. took it all in stride, though. (Which is the “up” side to being raised by the Last Great Victorian – confrontation of any kind is to be avoided). But, he was also a wonderful surrogate father. He was gentle and compassionate. And I think, I like to assume, that because he didn’t scold or embarrass or implicate me in those delicate mishaps, that it helped me overcome them—be it bedwetting or something I suffered with far worse in my early days: stuttering.

I still felt awful about it. He reassured me, certainly, but he was concerned. And though it wasn’t perhaps meant, what I eventually began to take away from these bedwetting moments, even as few and far between as they were, was the fear of one question: What would people think?

And that, I’m afraid, is what cemented in my young brain.

Case in point: last night’s dream.

I’m at a school, preparing for class, that I was suddenly told I had to teach. The room is quickly filling up with eager college students; I’m a nervous wreck. The room is crowded, and noisy. I decide that if we all take our shoes and watches off that it will settle us. So, everyone does. I have chosen to show the entire third season of Roseanne and have everyone write haiku about the plot. A student hands me a Thums Up, also known as the Coke of national choice in India; it goes straight through me. My bladder is literally about to explode.

I don’t know what to do. I’m in the middle of class. So, I call former TV-star Jay Thomas, by pressing a button on the wall by my podium—he was obviously a popular person at this school—he steps into relieve me for a few moments. I run down the hall and find the bathroom, but it’s entirely full. There are no available stalls and I can’t use the urinals because I sit down when I pee, we all do in my family as it’s impolite to be heard using the restroom.

I’d even warrant that we’d rather just die of kidney failure than to use one. (After this dream, perhaps that will change).

I wait and wait and wait. A stall finally opens. I rush in and turn to close the door, except it won’t shut. I’m nearing desperation. I try everything. Finally, I kick the hell out of it and it catches the latch.

Whew.

I begin to unbutton my pants when I realize that even though the door is latched, it doesn’t meet the wall of the stalls. There is an inches-wide crack all around the door. I can see everything; everything can see me.

I simply cannot pee in these conditions.

So, I do the next best thing. I wake up. At first, confused—I’m not really a Jay Thomas fan—and then it dawns on me: I really have to go to the bathroom.  My brain was trying to both tell me and not allow me to abandon my Victorian ideals, not even for a wayward second. It woke me up, instead.

It wove a dream involving two of my worst fears:  sudden teaching (the educator’s actor’s nightmare), and having to pee when I don’t have the time to. Don’t laugh; I secretly think that’s everyone’s fear.

The point is, it woke me up, first.

And when I crawled back into bed, I did so amazed at the lengths the human mind will go to steer you in the direction of your upbringing.  I was grateful, and then mad about it.

I couldn’t get back to sleep for admiring how smart my own brain was.

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