In Wonder of Agony

You may find this silly but, today I forgot to wash the conditioner out of my hair - didn't even notice until I was outside waiting for the bus trying to figure out why my hair was all plastered to my head. Drunk? Not this time...

Those of you who have met me know that I am a walking poster-dog for the effects of bad genetics, drug abuse, and poor dental care - which makes me a veritable dream for any practitioner of the Maxillofacial/Prosthodontic art. What I'm saying is that my teeth are abysmal and, as I age, are in steep decline.

I make too much money to qualify for any insurance that I cannot pay for, but I don't make enough money to pay for it. So, I'm living with the consequences of my parents, the biotechnological history of my birthplace (no treated water until 1970), and my often poor choices.

I am in the midst of riding out an abscessed tooth - helping the nerve die with dignity, and experiencing levels of physical pain that I can only describe as wondrous. I have been through this before, how many times? I don't know - but, this time is different.

This is the only time when I've gone through without a junkie mind - over the past few days I've begun to wonder about many things; if I need to experience all the pain I've put off by ingesting massive amounts of drugs for years on end, if I am experiencing this to learn the truth of what Khalil Gibran wrote concerning pain:

...
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.

And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen.

It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
...

Or, simply the culmination of events come to fruition.

Whatever the case, I have died a thousand tiny deaths over the last few days - I allow myself a glass of wine to help me sleep, no more. I have learned that hitting the nerve with straight Listerine will do wonders when I need to clear my head enough to communicate or function. I have also learned that having direct discourse with the nerve as it dies, as it pleads for release is helpful - telling it to shut down, to sleep, to let go; that the message that it sends to my cortex is redundant and futile.

And, in the midst of this, I have several times transcended to a place where the pain of this one little nerve is the agony model of a world; confusion, longing, need, desire unrequited, and fear that there is no end to it. I can breathe all of this in, and breathe it back out into the vastness of a universe that I know is big enough to contain it.

The peace that I experience when the pain subsides is awe-inspiring. Though I know it's only a remission, I also know that the blinding silver-hot bubbles of bio-agony that strike like lightning through my face and down into my chest are manifested perceptions that equate to seemingly endless torture the are but momentary pulses that, somehow, I can learn to step between.

Peace.