June 12, 2024

Too Much Me

My wife adjusted her alarm clock, and we slept in until 5 AM. I woke up feeling better, more rested. After some coffee with my lady, we fed the dogs, each one in their own kennel, which worked out nicely. Once my wife was ready, I walked her outside, wiped down her mirrors, and gave her a kiss goodbye.

I sat down at my desk to write, planning for a longer session. This required me to skip my walk into the woods, but today I only worked half the day. In the afternoon, I had another dental appointment so they could clean the other side of my mouth.

During the morning, I took care of a few issues at work. I had a late meeting, but we had it earlier than scheduled, which freed me up to finish work on time. At noon, I turned off my computer and headed to Raleigh. There was some traffic along the way, but I arrived half an hour early.

The cleaning went more smoothly than last week. I wasn’t a big fan of the shots, though. There was an overhead television for me to watch during the procedure, a welcomed distraction. When I was getting the shots, the television timed out, creating a blank screen that gave a perfect reflection of the longest needle I had ever seen going in and out of my mouth. Crikey.

Last week my drive home included a scenic tour of the countryside because of an accident, but this week the drive back was fast. I passed Bailey, moving on to Wilson to get gas and stop at Harris Teeter for an assortment of refreshments. I picked up some fresh cherries and strawberries for my wife while restocking our supply of IPAs.

When I arrived home, I was feeling a little cranky. Part of my mouth was throbbing, and the part that wasn’t hurting was completely numb, including half of my tongue, which made swallowing an awkward task. I pulled a cheese stick out of the refrigerator, trying to get some food in my stomach. On the right side of my mouth, the cheese was cold, and on the left, it felt hot. I sat down with the dogs and we all talked about how dentistry, while a necessary evil, still sucked in 2024.

My boss, who was out on vacation, called me while I was off on sick time. That did wonders to help lighten my already cranky mood. A little later, my wife called to let me know she was going to wait out traffic. While I wanted to see her, I couldn’t blame her for avoiding rush hour. The long commute offered little joy.

My mood lifted when my wife arrived. She had made a secret stop at the Piggly Wiggly and came home with ice cream sandwiches, drumsticks, and two large Lunchables. She was happy to see her cherries and strawberries sitting on the counter. We liked each other a little.

We took our Lunchables, mine with ham and cheese, and hers, some god awful mini pizza kit, to the back porch where we sat eating, talking, and sipping on a cold, sudsy IPA. I bought her a small bottle of pinot grigio imported from Italy, but we bought wine so infrequently that we didn’t have a corkscrew to open it. So beer it was. I gave one of my chocolate chip cookies to my wife and she tossed me her mini Nestle crunch bar.

After dinner, we gathered food scraps and hauled them to the feeding area by the house. When we finished, I went back inside the house to rest while my wife took a walk in the woods for last light. When she returned, she reported she saw no wildlife, and that the biting flies were out. She brought me back a small gift, however, a beautiful hawk feather she found near the creek.

We stood talking while my wife fed the dogs, and I cleaned the kitchen. She gave me some advice, telling me I should focus on riding the wave, an aquatic form of rolling with the punches. As soon as she said it, something clicked inside me. She was right. The busy work weeks and dental visits had me too much inside my head, focusing too much on me.

I needed to relax and just be where I was. My wife and I had a saying we expressed when things were hard or circumstances were suboptimal. We would say, “That’s just where we are right now.” Acknowledging our current situation was a form of acceptance, and this embracing of the present moment often relieved the pressure we felt, simply by ending our own resistance to the way things were.

My wife went to take a bath while I sat down at my desk to write some notes. It was halfway to the weekend, and I had several positive things to focus on. My boss was gone on vacation, I had a day off next week, and my wife’s graduation was quickly approaching.

After showering, I checked on each of my dogs, wishing them a goodnight. When I was done, I crawled into bed, stirring my wife. Earlier, she asked me to wake her when I came to bed so she could snuggle me. I did, and she did. Life was perfectly well. As I drifted off to sleep, I wondered why people became more negative when they pulled away from their environment and hyper-focused on themselves. There seemed to be a balance of paying attention to our needs, the needs of others, and our environment. And when we let life pull us too much into one category, then stress ensued.