Sunday, July 31, 2011

phantom ache



I had a tooth out last week. I spent a day on the good meds and a day hungover from the good meds; and now it just aches. Amazing how when one part of you is hurting, it stops much mattering what's going on with the rest. That pain is all you can think about.

The tooth had been in my life for a long time, all of my life that I can remember really. We'd had a difficult relationship over the past few years. Measures had been taken to salvage things: a root canal, a couple of round of antibiotics but as time went on, things only got worse and eventually I had to accept that there was no saving the tooth. The tooth was bad news and was never going to cause me anything but grief. Now it's gone and I'm aching.

Because when that which is a part of us is ripped brutally away, it hurts no matter what kind of palliatives we use. The tooth causes me more pain now that it's gone than it ever did when it was still around. It wasn't the ideal tooth but it was my tooth and now the space where it was aches from its absence.

Isn't that just life though?

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