Constipation: When the system refuses

 Constipation is frustrating. Not mildly frustrating but annoyingly frustrating. It is not just an inconvenience. It is frustrating on a deep, spiritual and existential level. I am on the loo doing everything that has worked before, including sudoku, but nothing is working now. Under normal conditions, things move. You eat, you live and you release. You do not even have to think about it because it is a natural process. It is like a basic agreement based on trust, where you do your part of eating fibre regularly within a balanced diet, and the body does its thing. Accountability. 

Regular bowel movements are proof that systems are working, while constipation, I am realising, is what happens when the system refuses. I am pushing strategically, with intention, with posture adjustments and controlled breathing. The wellness industry has told us that mindful breathing can solve most of our problems. Anyway I am breathing deeply, expanding my lungs as if oxygen might persuade stubborn muscles. I am singing softly to my insides like an Africa parent coxing a child who has wedged themselves in the security bar grid. I am scrolling my phone pretending that distraction might accidentally trigger cooperation.

Nothing. 

It will not come because it is not ready, not softened, not prepared and not interested in participating in my plans for the day. It has decided without consulting me that today is not the day.

From where my feet are, this feels painfully familiar. This feels like politics in Uganda.

People love to say "push harder" as though pressure alone has ever solved a deeply clenched problem. As though politics is the gym where effort automatically equals results. Citizens push. The youth push. The women's groups push. Activists push. Every election cycle becomes another deep breath, another hopeful squat, another collective strain wrapped in patriotic language. 

Still nothing moves.

I am learning that you cannot force release from a system that has been holding on for decades. You cannot shout it loose. You cannot tweet or sing it out. You cannot pray it out. You cannot hashtag your way into structural relaxation. A system that has been trained to retain will retain, even when retention becomes painful, even when the body itself is showing clear signs of distress, and even when everyone can see this is no longer healthy. 

What exhausts or frustrates me most is not the refusal, but the pretending. 

Pretending something is happening. Pretending progress is being made. Pretending discomfort is normal. Pretending  waiting quietly on our phones counts as motion. Pretending pressure equals progress. Pressure without movement is not progress. it is rather stagnation with better branding.

Constipation is not laziness. It is effort without reward. It is readiness without response. It is knowing that something must move and realising you do not control the muscles that matter. People say, "be patient" as if patience is a moral virtue in every situation. Patience when misused become an accomplice. Patience is useful when something is cooking. Patience begins to feel dangerous when something is rotting. 

But you know what? I did not wake up one day constipated. 

And like politics, we ate our way here as Ugandans. We swallowed compromises. We digested silence. We normalised delay. We accepted "not now" so many times.

From where my feet are, I understand something uncomfortable: bodies insist on resolution and history does too, for that matter. But release after prolonged constipation is never elegant. It is not graceful and not instagrammable. It is painful and sometimes things tear. Sometimes things break. Sometimes what comes out carries the stench of everything that was held too long. 

That is why I am (was) angry on this toilet. 

I am angry at the strain. Angry at the repetition. Angry at being told to keep breathing when oxygen is not the problem. I am tired of pushing. Tired of symbolic gestures. I am tired of being advised to wait, when waiting is precisely how we got stuck.

Constipation is frustrating. From where my feet are, a country that refuses to let go is worse.