Weathering An Ego Attack

Dear friend,

When it gets you, it can really get you.

I have a thing about dentists. Many people do, but this side of my personality is a throwback to the way Dad and Granddad looked after themselves.

Nana had a full set of false teeth by her 17th birthday, and Mam and Dad were both sporting dentures for as long as I can remember.

Whatever the historical reasons, I’ve a history of avoidance when it comes to dental checkups. Mam had a stutter when she got nervous. She’d get to the reception, and when they asked for our surname, she’d not be able to say it.

Eventually, I would step in and, feeling like a traitor, speak our name for us both. She’d thank me silently, but I still felt disloyal, ending the suspended state of animation; everyone watching, I felt the weight of it.

A few days past, I bit on something—a fragment of nut kernel perhaps—and felt a sharp pain in an upper right molar. The sensitivity went on for a few days, and, it being the last of the big guns on that side of my jaw, this morning I took it upon myself to do the sensible thing and book myself in for a checkup.

The receptionist couldn’t find me on their system.

“When was the last time you visited us?”

“About four years, I think.”

Silence.

Then an explanation—how, unlike a doctor’s surgery, if you don’t attend regularly, then you’re dropped from the practice, and no, we aren’t taking any new NHS patients currently.

It makes sense. This is London. People move around a lot, and letting your dentist know you’ll not be seeing each other again is probably low on a lot of people’s priorities at the best of times.

The practice manager was polite, but there was no budging, and I wrestled my ego into a full-body pin just to avoid being hostile.

Then my ego flew into a rage.

I paced.

Kicked the couch.

Sat on the back doorstep, arms clutched across my chest, and let the storm churn.

I looked around for something to smash up.

That wasn’t going to happen. Even the kick to the couch was not much more than a tap. What was going on outside, on the surface, was nothing but a mere hint of the inner broiling.

Deep breathing.

I’m still pacing.

I go to my desk and start ringing around local practices. A kind voice answers the third number I call.

“How local are you?” the voice asks. “We’ve had a cancellation. Can you be here in ten minutes?”

I can’t.

But she books me in for 2 p.m. anyway. I don’t know where the sudden ability to conjure a slot came from, but I take it anyway.

Then a voice sounds in my head: “Don’t you remember you’re being cared for?”

I do remember, but my ego isn’t done with me yet.

I remember that I’d especially disliked the way the old dental practice tried to sell me a perfect smile on every visit.

The churn continues until I get to the new practice and notice that it’s quite nicely thought out, with plants in the reception, and I get to meet the owner of the kind voice, who seems wonderfully humane.

There’s a tension in the air, though, and I’m wondering if I’m chaperoning my own personal cloud of doom, but it becomes apparent that the receptionist and the dentist may not be on the best of terms. There’s an advert on the window glass for a new receptionist.

Slowly, the storm inside is dying down.

The dentist is coughing and hacking as I wait in the doorway. She seems stressed but friendly. “At least she’s a dentist,” I’m thinking.

At least I made it here.

And there’s a feeling washing through me that I am cared for, guided. That this is the right place, with the coughing and tension.

And all through the whole episode was a tiny sliver of light.

Just enough not to get completely pulled into the drama.

Enough that I didn’t believe one hundred percent in it.

Just a tiny willingness.

A crack in the shell.

Just that.

Is enough.

Till tomorrow

Love

Mikey