Sometimes, a little rot makes its way through the tooth's defenses, and starts to eat away at the soft and vulnerable dentin. From the outside, everything looks normal, but inside the tooth is decaying, all through its centre. Then the enamel crumbles away, and suddenly the nerve is exposed. This happened to me recently, both literally and metaphorically.

An old book on the shelf tells me that decay of the "4-6" tooth represents being "self-defeating."

I can understand that. I've done my share of self-sabotaging. Who hasn't? But for the past little while, being self-defeating has seemed like a lifestyle. An inescapable lifestyle, for in the past I have tied, and failed, to break away from it.

It hurt- both the way of life, and the tooth. I had the tooth drilled and filled. I refused anesthetic. I hurt. It was the greatest pain I have ever lived. By far. Every pain I believed to have had experienced is negligible by comparison. Before the process was over, I asked for anesthetic. By that point, in a room cold enough to have had me shivering before the drilling started, my whole body was sweating. I could feel it running down the backs of my legs. While the dentist, a very gentle man, was working, it was all I could do to remember to take breaths, and not move my jaw. I was told the decay was on the nerve, and the nerve itself needed to be drilled or scraped. That really, really hurt.

I took more pain then I ever imagined I was capable of withstanding. One of the few coherent thoughts I could hold during the drilling was that the pain I am experiencing is the pain of being self-defeating.

And I've had enough of it. Enough of not living the life I was born to live, the life that makes me happiest. Enough of being afraid of doing the good work enjoined in living in such a life, and enough of placing highest value on wallowing in the distractions I picked up along the way to keep myself complacent.

So now, taking the lesson of the pain as a milestone, I commit to honour myself. I will no longer let my life drift away without purpose. What purpose? Stay tuned. This blog is an attempt to chronicle joy, pain, and life experienced in accordance to the truth of my heart.