The more habits and guidelines and STRUCTURE you build into your day, the less energy and stress you waste agonizing over making (bad) decisions.

You’d think at fifty-one years old I’d have a lot of this shit locked in, but I’m still working on it.

One thing I decided many years ago to structure my days around is POOPING. Allowing for plenty of time and behaviors to do that first; NOTHING is more important than pooping. A healthy, happy, and successful life cannot be had without regular poops.

It seems most people do not even have to think about pooping, let alone design their lives around making it happen; their bodies get the job done without the need for huge lifestyle interventions. I, on the other hand, have had a hard time pooping my whole life.

I’m still getting a handle on why pooping doesn’t come easily to me, so I still haven’t succeeded in building a daily routine and approach to scheduling and boundaries that leas to being able to reliably poop every day.  Over the past few years it’s become clearer to me that my brain and body perceive and process data and stimuli differently than most people, so I spent the majority of my first ~25 years of life in chronic fight or flight mode with my digestive and reproductive systems taking a shut-down back seat to just trying to survive. I still have a lot if work to do to build accommodations into life and work with this reality in mind, and without compromise, judgment, or shame.

They (experts!) say not to consume stimulants like caffeine after a certain point in the day if you want to get a good night’s sleep. But if your brain is wired wacky like mine is, stimulants often have a paradox effect. For some of us, Ritalin, caffeine, and other “uppers” actually help us calm and quiet down and even get better sleep than if we hadn’t had any since lunchtime or whatever.

I guess all I really want to say is it’s bedtime now and I just had a pleasant, cleansing fecal blowout after a delicious after-dinner dessert coffee.

I’m going to sleep well tonight.