I'm Goin In!

         Today I’m going for the second part of my root canal. Wish me luck. I am deathly afraid of dentists. I haven’t been in probably 4 years. Which is part of the reason I need a root canal (take care of your teeth yall!). But I’m deathly afraid. I don’t like pain, and like most people, I do everything I can to avoid it. I’m weak. I’m fragile. When they told me I needed a root canal, I was laid out in the dentist chair, crying. Crying ugly.

            Fear is not logical. I need the root canal to save my tooth. The pain from the damaged root is more than the pain of getting it removed. But I still am afraid. Last week I had the first part of the procedure. I realize, what scares me about the dentist is the lack of control. Its like being on a plane that’s headed to the ground, and there’s a parachute, but someone is clutching it tight, not letting you have it. You have the tools to jump, but someone is holding you down (like they do in that dentist chair) and not letting you do it. That is not a direct metaphor. Its not logical. But that’s how I feel in the dentist chair. A loss of control to people I don’t trust, and pain that seems never ending. If I had a stop and go button, if I could control them touching me, if I could ask for breaks, I’d feel a lot easier. But that’s not how pain goes, not how dentistry goes, not how life goes.

          Last Thursday I got the first part of the root canal done. Part of a damaged nerve removed. It was simple, clean, and not too painful. For all those tears, it was easy. I felt unstoppable, that I didn’t die in the process.

             There are other life processes I feel I might die in the middle of. Traveling is one. I told you fear is not logical. I’ve been dreaming, especially lately, of going to Europe. London, Paris,  somewhere like that. But the idea is so scary to me. I can’t get to the root of it. I don’t know what exactly I’m afraid of. What strange fate I think will befall me…. But, since I got the root canal, I feel a lot less scared to think of Paris. If I didn’t die in the dentist chair, will the Eifel Tower really fall on my head?