You have to be brave to live in this world. 

The agony can be intolerable. Excruciating. Ongoing. You don't know when it's going to end. You don't know how you're going to make it through the day. There are fears for the future, secret terrors that gnaw at you at night.

And I'm not even talking about war, famine, natural disaster, divorce, violence and broken relationships. 

I'm talking about the dentist.

I don't have much dental work done. I tend to avoid it. Of course, this may be the reason that the last five times I've been (once a year in the last five years, approximately) I've been assaulted in the dentist chair.

Of course, I don't mean the dentists (for there have been several) have physically hit me. They've all been very nice, gentle, polite people who've talked sympathetically to me, found out what my problem has been and then said the dreaded words: "OK, let's take a look."

And then I've opened my mouth and they've stuck things in and tapped on teeth and made me scream and drilled into my brain and then left me to rinse and spit and make my painful way home, where I've laid on the couch and groaned.

You have to be brave to go to the dentist.

Unfortunately, you've got to be brave to not go to the dentist, especially when all you do is sniff and immediately you're in more agony than you were when you had your fourth child without an epidural. Right now I've got some sort of gum infection/absess going on. It's a sneaky little rat of an infection. It tricks me into thinking it's okay and it's healing up and then I do something completely unconnected with chewing or biting or teeth at all - it's just pressure on the roof of my mouth that it doesn't like - and it has me writhing around, sticking my head into the couch cushions, hoping to die. 

I don't like pain. 

This world is full of it. 

You've got to be brave to live here.

On another note: Happy New Year. May your 2014 be completely free of all dental complications. May you chew, spit and swallow with abandon and lighthearted joyousness. When I'm at the gum specialist having a goodly portion of my gum cut out and my absess drained yet again I'll be thinking of you.