My Stomach has an announcement to make:

It doesn’t want to be a stomach anymore.

My stomach doesn’t want be a stomach anymore; at least that’s my impression of what this integral body part is thinking when it gets irritated by whatever I happen to put into it. I mean, you’re a stomach and it’s not like I’m drinking bleach. It’s a cup of tea with a little bit of sugar in it. Or crackers; or Doritos. I think I should be able to allow my mouth some enjoyment (the Doritos, plus chocolate and red wine) without my stomach raising a fuss. I say “Come on stomach, just do your job. You’re a stomach!” To which my stomach replies “NO!” like a belligerent toddler.

My stomach is quite irritable at times. One part of my body gets stressed (my brain) and then my stomach goes “OH MY GOSH!! STRESS!!! NO EATING!!! IF YOU SWALLOW ONE MORE THING I’M GOING TO LOSE IT!” And sometimes it does. My stomach can be so dramatic. It either shuts the door to entry, or starts lighting internal fires, and I don’t want to add any fuel to the fire.

And then it complains again once it’s empty, because silly me, I listened to it and stopped eating for an hour or two. Once a stomach, always a stomach I guess, even if sometimes it “doesn’t feel like it”. So then because I know how dramatic my stomach can be, I think of drama-free foods to eat. We’re talking about bland, flavourless “foods” that provide little to no excitement, and are really just there to take up space so that the painful complaints stop. We’re talking brown rice, soda crackers, and ginger tea. This is me trying to outsmart my stomach. Some people say that our digestive systems have their own kind of “brain”. If that’s true, I imagine this “brain” is rather small and that my big, boss-brain in my head can easily outsmart it.

The only issue is that these two systems talk to each other and they influence each other. They have ways of enrolling each other in each other’s drama. It’s a logical fallacy; a circular argument of sorts that my brain-body system perpetuates on a daily basis.

One thing that my brain, mouth, and stomach agree on is that beans are gross. This is the reason I can’t be a vegetarian. I’d never get enough protein because beans are a “no-go” from top to bottom [laugh here].

With all this drama of not allowing food in, or lighting internal fires, I took it to mean that my stomach just doesn’t want to be a stomach anymore. It doesn’t matter that that’s what it is now and will be forever. It’s tired of it now. It wasn’t even sure it wanted to be a stomach in the first place, but went down that path in order to please something or somebody. Poor thing.

So, my stomach is tired of being a stomach. It says “I’d like to try something new. I want to see the world, like the eyes do. I’m always stuck inside”. Well, stomach, that’s where you’re going to stay because I just had a visual of my stomach trying to leave my body and going sightseeing in Italy or Iceland and…. it freaked me out.

If there is any trip to Italy, stomach, we’re going together. If I remember correctly we did like the food in Italy that time we went. I know you were picky about things like cheese, but we were alright with the “cornetto”, high quality gelato (taking proper anti-lactose precautions), pasta, and an appropriate amount of red wine. Not only is my stomach dramatic, it’s also a diva. The higher quality, the more likely it is that my stomach will be okay with it. We’ve never preferred the cheapest wine at a wine-tasting (usually the more expensive ones), and we’re willing to make an exception for a very old sharp cheddar. I’m okay with having high standards too. The food usually tastes better then, and my tongue will continue wanting to be a tongue.

My stomach isn’t the only part of my body that is no longer happy with its position or role within my full-body system. My feet are tired of being a feet and getting walked on all the time.  How do I know? Plantar fasciitis. If you have experienced the “joy” of plantar fasciitis, then you know what I’m talking about. My feet look like feet generally look (and they’re nice looking feet, as far as feet are concerned), so they look like they suit their intended purpose. They just happen to be picky about where they’re used, how they’re used, how long they’re used, and what kind of support (shoes) they have on.

My feet are also into expensive things, like my stomach is. There’s no shopping the sales racks or discount stores or “getting a deal” on a new pair of shoes. No, buying a new pair of shoes in this case is an experience, a challenge, and a journey through specialty shoe stores (Incidentally, while I can eat Italian food quite willingly, Italian shoes don’t work for my feet…I know…that means traveling to a different European country to get shoes. Poor me). So while it does seem expensive at first, I end up with some quality shoes – with timeless style of course – and keep them for a long time.

Still, I say, why not just make feet work properly from the start? Is there anyone out there who can say “I’ve got perfect feet!”? or “My feet just love being feet and they don’t want to be anything else or stop carrying me around. They just want to walk, run and jump all over the place!”? The odds are that there is someone out there who will look at this person’s feet and say “actually, your arches are 0.005 millimetres too high. In ten years your knees are going to fall apart because of this. You’ll need custom orthotics”. Maybe this advice is actually another issue. Maybe this person’s feet are perfect.

And maybe my feet still want to be feet and they just need a beach vacation like the rest of my body does; including my stomach.