When I was five or six, a milestone was passed with the snap of the last fiber of gum tissue holding an incisor in place. The little chip of enamel was enthralling, and the black notch it left in my face was something of status.
Today, another milestone was passed with my dentist's utterance of the word 'extraction.' He spoke of a tooth, numbered 31, that has gone seriously south. The x-ray scans detailed the mess I'd neglected since first feeling a twinge of unrest nearly a year ago. On the monitor was a conspicuous scene that showed a bulbous cavern of dark gray within a molar and further discoloration below its roots.
My options were limited. On Uncle Sam's insurance plan, I could have paid for the work with the cash I had on me. That is, because I chose to decline any fancy reparations. The decision to let the man go ahead and wrench it out of my head didn't come immediately. This is my mouth's first casualty (except for one wisdom tooth, but really, they're born in limbo), so naturally I underwent a number of coping stages there in the vinyl recliner.
It didn't seem it could be as simple as to 'extract' the hollow beast without some sort of compensation for its absence. This all sounded like preparation for a full set of falsies. I inquired about a bridge. Apparently this is not a complusory operation following tooth removal, but as the price told, it is a luxury.
Then the last stage hit. To reminisce for some background, I was asked several months ago if I felt I woke up one morning and found that I was an adult. I agreed I had at the time, but upon further introspection, it's more like I'm drifting in and out of wakefulness to this fact. To put it metaphorically, it's like I'm fighting to hold on to a dream state on a Sunday morning in which I'm committed to attend my own adolescent perspective's wake service.
This in mind, a dental assistant, near my age, examining the sad state of my teeth was the limo driver tapping the horn a few times outside my bedroom window. As the rotational x-ray machine whirred around my jaws, I nearly sighed at the face staring back from an inset mirror. There were no wrinkles or liver spots, and my face was spared from the death-hickeys of 1995, but a detectable matte gauze of physical maturity lay over the freckles.
Then, looking into the face of the assistant, I saw someone who could have graduated from high school in my same class. Sharpness of facial definition seems a trustworthy clue to one's age. It struck me was that she was my peer, in the workforce and in what is referred to as the real world.
Back when I was 5 or 6, a 25 year-old-looking dental assistant wouldn't have caused the bat of an eye to me. However, to the elderly woman in the next cubicle, much information and assurance was required from the young assistant. The more relative age beyond the client's age, the more perceived competence, usually up to a senior-status threshold. When the principal of an elementary school is under fire for an action, it is from parents who are peers of his or hers. The child may disagree with a school administrator's reprimand, but the authority figure's expertise in the matter is most often assumed. After all, he or she is bigger than you.
One grows and ages, each mistake is perceived as less of a lesson and more as a deliberate action. Adulthood seems to have some dire implications. I will eventually pay dues to my generation of associates, but perhaps never look upon the death of my youth. After this Friday, a permanent gap will be made in my teeth, though how I will try to bridge the one forming in time.
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