Resolved

I suspect that the tooth next to the one they pulled in November is also failing. I've had a series of headaches in the last couple weeks which culminated in a blinding one yesterday. Big thanks to Emily's advice, I dissolved a niacin pill under my tongue and within minutes my headache eased, leaving an ominous pressure in my jaw. I called the dentist, got advice to wait until morning and call back if the pain had persisted. Not only has the pain persisted, it has localized to the jaw bone deep under the tooth. I was dozing after Tim's alarm went off and was awoken by a significant zing followed by the pounding heart of an adrenaline rush. I've popped an advil and left a voicemail on the dentist's after hours line giving him the heads up.

I am resolved. I am not going to try antibiotics for the 4th time in 4 months. I am not going to try a re-root canal. I am not going to be talked out of my self-knowing. I am not going to wait for the infection to be visible on x-rays. I am not going to wait until the pain is a run-away train I don't know how to stop safely. I am not going to be up all night in terror. I am not going to push the play and repeat buttons of all my biggest feelings from my worst days. I am not going to try to save a tooth which died years ago. I am not going to expend my limited healing resources on containment.

I am calmly and swiftly going to have him pull it out. And I will put it in my tooth box with honor.

Possibly, it will not come to that. Possibly, it will get better. I am open to being pleasantly surprised. But since the infections in my molars started 25 years ago, I doubt it. And I'm not expending one more drop of hope or energy on trying harder for this.

My teeth are a symbol of my life. I have tried. I have waited. I have hoped. I have expended time, money, emotion, and the juice of my life. I have tried some more. I have hurt and hurt and hurt while I hoped and tried. And then have hurt some more. Some things yielded. Some things healed. But some have not and I am realizing at near-40 that some never will. I could never accept that before. I wielded my sword until my hand froze around it because losing meant I was a loser. If I admitted failing, I would be a failure. Winners never quit and quitters never win and all that jazz.

I am now ready to trade off. Dead teeth are not worth agonizing over. Some things are worth walking through my terror and body remembrances of pain for. Happiness is. Peace is. Joy is. I am. My dead teeth are not. Neither are my fantasy relationships nor my perfectly accomplished childbirth nor the approval of the disrespectful nor the affection of the unsafe.

I wanted to feel capable and competent and approved instead of betrayed and wimpy and irreparably flawed. So I tried harder and whipped myself into painful relationships which always had "so much potential." I tried to earn respect from those who despise me and embraced the menacing. Because THEN, I would be a winner. THEN, I would be acceptable. My heart would never break. My body would always perform. I would always triumph.

Except I was never happy.

Oh, I could feel happiness from time to time like a cool breeze in July but I didn't live there. I didn't know contentment. Year after year my themes tapped my deepest longings for satisfaction and rest and joy and power and pleasure and now happiness. I find myself swimming in a happiness so deep I can't touch bottom. And oddly it seems to have nothing to do with winning or being acceptable or demonstrating my ambition in accomplishment or being liked by the hard to please or getting people to do what I want.

I checked out a Paul Potts opera CD because I had watched his you tube video and been moved despite not speaking Italian or ever before liking opera. I drove listening to song 3 (I'll try to get the title) and wept- tears pouring down my face and running onto my coat- weeping because he sang my beauty and grief and glory in being a human being. Being fully alive, pain and all, is worth it.

To trust myself in being fully alive, I need to know that I am no longer going to sacrifice myself and my happiness in vain. I am not going to force myself to be with people I feel worse around. I am not going to sacrifice my peace to impress the difficult. I am not going to traipse back into the trauma to try to overcome it when I could walk respectfully around. I used to be afraid that I would never be happy again if I entered the pain, so I lived in the metropolis of Fearanddenial. Then, when that failed, I dwelled in the desolate Painandterror for years, like the Isrealites pitching tents for 40 years in the desert. Now, I could move into a nice place in Peaceandhappiness but find myself wondering if I accidentally wound up back in Fearanddenial instead.

How could I possibly be happy ever again after accepting everything I am, everything I am not, and everything I will never be?
How can I trust myself ever again after knowing how I've chosen before, knowing that even if I always try my best it won't always work out, and knowing that even with the best advice I can be tragically wrong?

My best working guess is a mishmash of things. Things like cheesy lyrics to old country-western songs like, "You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away, know when to run." And things like dancing more and buying myself my favorite flowers more often, just because. Going on walks with people who make my heart sing and listening to songs that make me cry. Spending time with people who make me proud to be a human being and telling and retelling every noble story and good deed I know. Revealing myself in an art show and putting it out there for all comers. Snuggling with those I like to be close to and eating food that I really like. Realizing when I'm straining irritably and responding to myself kindly.

Today it means starting blogging before daylight, responding to Mark's interruptions for a hug and a breakfast right now, washing Anjali's hair in the sink, looking for snowpants for myself at a clearance sale, buying Mark a cool toy off Craig's List for his plane trip to FL, figuring which good food I have time to prep and enjoy today, wondering how to prepare my space for friends this afternoon, and wrapping up this blog.

Thanks for listening. I see how much was in me now.
No more extreme measures for the tooth. No more standing around in the borderlands. I'm ready to trade off. I have a lot of life to live and a lot of myself to enjoy.