Be kind to all versions of you.

Especially the ones that are not you.

As much as I dread my bi-yearly dentist appointment, I am equally fascinated by the experience. It’s a time of forced reflection under duress — what else are you gonna do while someone ransacks, digs, and carves into your mouth bones? I’m sure ( but haven’t really checked ) that the word ‘teeth’ is some form of marketing. You see, these are special bones! I thought in between the ransacking.

There’s little space for talk either. Beyond being reprimanded once more about not reaching behind, in between, and underneath said bones, my dentist also tries one-sided small talk (Did you see the game last night? Great performance by the such and such.) To which all I can do is nod with my eyes (I hate sports), maybe throw in an emphatic gurgle here and there — he’s the man with the knife, after all. There’s ample pain, of course. I usually shed some tears and focus on the discomfort as a sign that I am alive, and that has to be good, right? And then you pay a small fortune to the folks who just tortured you, thank them, and go on with your life. Weird.

Today’s routine check-up was not routine at all. In fact, it was something of a life-changing event for me. There was the unexpected but relatively trivial: You need to come back to redo a root canal. Wait, what? I already had one. Well…