Tooth fragment. Ha.

So last month I went in for a routine teeth cleaning. And something turned up on my x-rays. “A root, is what it looks like,” said my very naive dental practitioner. She gave me a referral to my oral surgeon who did my wisdom teeth because it looked like it was left behind from that surgery. Little did she know.

I go in for a consultation with the oral surgeon and when he sees the x-rays immediately recongnizes it is not a root, but an entire tooth fragment. “No big deal,” he says, “we’ll just go in there and get it out.” So I schedule the appointment.

I went in today expecting the ordeal to last less than ten minutes, because it took them a total of 20 minutes to remove all wisdom teeth and stitch me up. This is also the reason I refused general anesthesia. Going under for a 5 minute procedure? Not this girl.

I wasn’t really worried until the Doctor started to sweat. And I don’t just mean that he looked misty, I’m talking he started to drip. I was afraid some was going to get on me and I was going to flip the hell out on him. Thankfully, he kept it to his scrubs and the insides of his eye glasses. There were times when he literally was pushing his weight onto this freaking piece of tooth that had started to become hidden because bone was starting to grow over it. Nice one, Doctor. 

After literally 30 straight minutes of pushing and pulling and drilling and twisting, the damn thing came loose. I’ve never been so happy to see a stitching needle. 

All that to say they told me that even though it was a fragment, they had basically done a full extraction, and to treat it as such. Hence I am now loaded up with giant tylenol and mashed potatoes, just like after my first pull. Needless to say, Nicole will have to drive me to Glendora at 5 am tomorrow for my internship orientation. Yay.

Modern dentistry is a crock.

 

This is me, trying to roll my eyes with a cold compress on my face.

My name is Crystal, and I’m a passive-aggressive.

The term passive-aggressive doesn’t sound to me as drastic as it really is. My passive is, “I’m going to ignore you, because I hate you” which is so dehumanizing. If that weren’t enough, my aggressive is, “I’m going to burn this bridge, because I don’t believe in fraternizing with people who screw me.” 

I’m discovering that when I indulge myself in being this way, I’m screwing myself. 

Forgiveness is counter-intuitive to every bone I have in my body. Phrases that run through my mind during times when I feel like I’m being taken advantage of are things like, “Screw you,” “I never want to see you again,” etc. There is only one relationship I’ve never regretted severing, because it was actually a healthy choice. And in that case, I was truly being harmed.

But in Angela’s case, every time Cathy (my boss/mentor) told me not rooming with her best friend was the only thing that saved her friendship, I didn’t believe her. I thought it worked for them, but it wasn’t true for me. I’d been so wronged, and I couldn’t overcome that.

God has been working in my very hardened heart this summer, most recently through pre-marital counseling. We were talking about my conflict resolution style, or lack there of. Blakey didn’t know half of what happened with me and Angela, but he told me it was always better to ask for forgiveness than to harbor feelings of bitterness and keep that in. 

When we got in the car, I started talking to Ben about how that was furthest from my mind and how I didn’t feel like I was the one that needed to apologize. I was a 21 year old, at a stand still because I didn’t think I needed to apologize. 

Last night, I was reading in Genesis about Jacob and Esau, when Jacob stole Isaac’s blessing from Esau. Esau comes in and weeps violently and bitterly, desperately asking his father if there is any blessing left for him. When Isaac says there isn’t, Esau seethes in anger against Jacob and plots to kill him after Isaac dies. It really resonated with me. Even though Jacob had done the wrong thing, God still blessed him. Esau had only a heart for hate, a heart set on killing his brother. His anger had penetrated that deeply. 

I don’t want to be like Esau. So I called Angela. We both cried, and I feel a lot better. I’m not dreading going back to school, and I’m not feeling like the situation was anyone’s fault. I feel free. 

I didn’t think forgiveness would make me feel that way.

My name is Crystal, and I’ve been passive-aggressively sober for an hour.