In the incomparable show “30 Rock,” the character Jenna Maroney describes love as such:

“It’s hiding who you are at all times. It’s wearing makeup to bed and going downstairs to the Burger King to poop!”

I remember sharing this sentiment as a younger woman. I carried my cosmetic bag everywhere I went. I brushed my hair hourly. My legs were always shaved. If I was eating in front of a man, I was eating salad or pecking at my dish with feigned disinterest. God, it’s so asinine, the pleasures I withheld from myself in order to acquiesce to the male gaze.

The night I met my husband, I was drinking a low calorie Michelob Ultra. That was my go-to drink, or a rum and diet. I don’t remember what he was drinking but it was much cooler than a domestic light beer. He’s a bona fide foodie, but he also despises words like “foodie,” which are honestly the best kind of foodies. He was a restaurant manager with a seasoned career in the food industry, and as our relationship took off, so did my immersion into the Chicago area culinary scene. Nothing was off limits: sashimi and quail eggs, wild game meat, Pakistani street food, Eastern European bohemian (where you get a cup of jello and a side of cottage cheese for dessert), and everything in between.

It may sound like our relationship was sponsored by “Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown,” but the one hiccup is that I have a very sensitive stomach. We’re talking IBS, lactose intolerance, and fingers that swell to the proportions of a bloated pig intestine should my body have to process the slightest hint of salt. However, unlike the thousands of other women with precious stomachs who also have boundaries and discipline, I choose to just power through the pain.

I’ve sacrificed my body to good food, which is way better than sacrificing my body to Fleece Vest Chad.

You know how you know you’ve met your life partner? After you’ve collectively scooped brain from a duck skull during dim sum in Chicago’s Chinatown neighborhood. After you’ve eaten a questionable batch of cuttlefish, after you’ve said, “YES PLEASE” to every bit of meat and shell fish on a lopsided lazy susan.

It was mere weeks into dating that I joined my now-husband’s family for a celebratory Chinese brunch. My sister-in-law is from Shanghai and is a delightfully adventurous diner. Not only am I game for anything that hits my plate under normal circumstances, but I also served up some serious new girlfriend gusto, enthusiastically blurting out “YUM” for a cool 90 minutes.

For the entire drove home via Chicago’s westbound I-290 expressway, I felt untouchable. I had just won the Girlfriend Super Bowl. There was no conversation I couldn’t join, no 1980s pop culture reference I couldn’t glom onto, no Cantonese dish I wouldn’t toss down my esophagus with the enthusiasm of a thousand homecoming dates.

“That went great!” he said as he squeezed my thigh.

It sure did. IT SURE DID.

…until it didn’t.

His bathroom floor tile was so cold as it pressed up against my cheek. That damn cuttlefish. A mere two hours ago, I casually tossed that cursed animal into my mouth as I waxed poetic about Fleetwood Mac with my future father-in-law. It served its purpose that afternoon but punished my hubris that evening.

Like one of those wall-mounted singing bass fish, the cuttlefish taunted me and my delicate bowels to the tune of Talking Heads’ “Take Me to the River.”

KNOCK KNOCK

“Babe, are you okay?”

If there’s any place I wished I could have been at that moment, it was evacuating dim sum from both ends at the Burger King, not in my new boyfriend’s apartment. No amount of sultry eyeliner or potpourri spray could offset this nightmare.

I was mortified. Fleece Vest Chad would never abide. But Allen, future husband, did.

He rubbed my back. He kissed my head. He poured me a glass of club soda. He pretended not to smell the bioterrorism my body just unleashed through the 800 square foot apartment he called home.

My mouth muttered “DON’T TOUCH ME” but my eyes said, “I LOVE YOU.” I slept on his dilapidated green couch that night, clenching my orifices in humiliation. I knew in that moment I would hold his heart in my heart forever.

Ladies, if you want to find your one true love, don’t rely on astrology or Cosmo quizzes or the judgement of your friends. Eat a bad batch of seafood and let it ride. The man who holds your hand as you crap your pants is certainly the man with whom you want to grow old.

A silver haired, curmudgeonly man approached me under the fluorescent lights of a Publix grocery store, two decades ago. He asked me where he could find hearing aid batteries. I had no idea. I was only a week or two into my new job as a cashier and customer service associate. I only knew where baby diapers were, and that’s because we were standing right in front of them. He seemed irritated with my ignorance, which filled me with anxiety disproportionate to the situation.

I remember wanting to quit. I wanted to quit a dozen times, because I felt foolish not having the answer. Over time, I went on to master the entire product catalog of that store, learning to identify merchandise placement in every department, aisle, and shelf. At that point, I was ready to move to something new, and the learning curve pattern started over again. This stubborn pattern emerges with every single job, life stage, and hobby I take on. I wanted to quit at my first marketing job out of college, I wanted to quit at my first challenge as a people manager, I wanted to quit when new motherhood felt too painful, when my finances were disastrous. But the reality of the learning curve applies to all undertakings, no matter your age or station.

There’s nothing in the life that doesn’t have a learning curve. You’re not born with any skill set that doesn’t require at least some degree of effort, save for pooping and sleeping – and any honest adult will admit that there’s a new learning curve to both of those things starting at some point in your mid-30s.

Fortunately, I’m learning to relish the uphill trudge rather than use it as an excuse to flake out.

Today, I find no excitement or beauty in stories of coasting or ease of acclimation. I’m attracted to humans struggling along the learning curve, who are demonstrating sweaty effort and the emotions of intermittent failure. I love encouraging the new barista behind the Starbucks register, trying to figure out how to hit all the right buttons to process some dude’s half-caff, two-pump monstrosity. I love when my daughter collapses on my bed at 8:30 PM because she just can’t solve the math problem. I giddily adjust two sets of fluffy pillows on which will put our heads together to figure it out. I love to massage the shoulders of bloody nippled friends who have just birthed their babies, giving them the same rah-rah pep of a boxing coach in the corner of the ring.

Slogging through intellectual, emotional, or physical resistance is the kind of rich human experience that we have to embrace, because it’s a requirement of anything worth doing. Any endeavor that is too easy feels like a total cheat.

Parents are pressured to give their children a range of extracurricular experiences – you know, to see what sticks. Team sports, music, performance, visual arts… we plop these kids into a million park district and school-sponsored activities and prod them along their own learning curves. “You won’t be any good if you don’t practice!” “It’s important to commit for the good of the team!” “How do you know if you will be any good if you don’t give it a try?” We wipe away their tears when they don’t make the team, telling them that the fact that they made the effort is even more noble than becoming the captain.

Why do we act as if this vulnerable experimentation only applies to children? If anyone needs an extracurricular, it’s Carol in Accounting, who risks spending the next 20 years being defined by a single set of circumstances instead of the full spectrum of possibilities that she fails to pursue. Over the past 10 years since I’ve become a mom and a career woman, I’ve joined a recreational roller derby league, studied comedy writing, formed a comedy troupe, experimented with stand-up, done kickboxing, joined more than one book club, attempted ink sketching, put myself in front of cameras at work, and started a blog. In all of these moments, I felt like a fumbling rookie, just a few strides onto a steep learning curve that I had zero confidence I’d be able to surmount. This was true in a few cases, but a total underestimation in other cases.

We were not put on this earth to coast through the motions. We were put here to live. I’d rather be perpetually powering towards my aspirations as a member of the junior varsity than being bored at the top of varsity.

There’s satisfaction in being at the top of your game, but there’s exhilarating joy in being the eternal rookie. Here’s to trying new things, potential failure be damned. As far as I’m concerned, there’s more sexiness in the effort than the success.

In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed but that our power to do has increased.”