My dentist is a Chinese guy, a real nice guy too, and I went to see him today to have my last wisdom tooth pulled. I was a little more than nervous. It was bottom left and it was broken and it was hurting.

I was waiting in his reception, and this is why I made a big thing out of him being Chinese, he was happily chatting away to some of his Chinese clients with his Chinese nurse. It didn't make me feel like I was in a different country; it made me feel like I was invisible. The last time I remember feeling that way was when I was a kid and it was a pretty weird feeling now that I'm middle aged. It got me thinking about how we treat people and how we sometimes do this to people because they're not popular enough, not part of our group or whatever. Like I said though, my dentist is a really nice guy and he eventually turned about and gave me the most beautiful smile and greeted me with a hi. I felt that there was such a lesson in this for me because I had considered the feeling of irritation I felt both at being ignored and also at him already running late and having time to chat (I realized that he was waiting for the anesthesia to take effect on someone else before working on them).

When it was my turn he had a look at that old tooth of mine and started to give me the anesthesia shots. I find those to almost the worst thing of all when I go to the dentist. I'm a freak when it comes to anesthesia, it took four rounds of the stuff to numb the tooth (the last round went straight into the part of the tooth that still hurt) and it still wouldn't numb properly. I gave the go ahead to start anyway and told him he would know when to stop if it still hurt too much. It dawned on there and then that I had already suffered far worse. I had given birth and this was going to be child's play compared to that no matter what happened.

The tooth was stubborn. I felt like it was holding on for grim death to all it had ever known. Teeth are alive you know, they absorb things through their enamel for example. It was almost as though it was afraid to let go of me but it finally came out and my dentist asked me to look at it (they do that so that you can confirm the whole tooth and the roots came out). I told him I didn't want to look at it but then I realized that it was a part of me lying there on the table and I was rejecting it as though it was something ugly and nasty. I did take a look at it and couldn't help myself, I said "Bye bye!" The dentist nurse laughed.

On the way home I thought about that tooth, that part of me that was now removed. I thought that if it had its own life would it be sad or relieved that it was no longer in pain or hurting me. Would its little soul (energy) slip away and join the source? I don't know but I do know that I have never thought about a tooth like that before. I know it sounds warped (but then I am warped) but it made me realize that everything has its place in this Universe even a broken wisdom tooth.