Years ago, I chipped a tooth. I don’t remember how it happened, but it’s a small chip on a lower tooth, so it’s not especially prominent. When I got the chip fixed, my dentist told me that the repair would probably break off every few years and I’d need to keep replacing it. He was right.
I’ve had the repair redone a couple of times already, and it broke off again a few weeks back. I’ve been too busy to get back to my dentist, so I’ve walked around every day lately fearing that people were staring at me and pointing fingers behind my back.
A few days ago, I was talking with a couple of friends at the office and I mentioned that I really needed to get to the dentist to get this terrible chipped tooth fixed.
Neither one of them knew what I was talking about. Even though we were sitting there talking — sitting close together — neither one of them had noticed. When I pointed it out, both seemed genuinely surprised that I was concerned about something so tiny.
And now I’ve been thinking uncomfortably ever since then about why I’m so worried about it — and why I’m so concerned that others are judging me.
We’re neither friends nor enemies, just strangers who share the past
Society needs storytellers to help make sense of a changing world
My bad teen poetry suggests I’ve always hungered for missing love
‘This path leads to somewhere I think I can finally say, I’m home’
When love finally dies, it’s like a fever breaks and the pain is gone
Midlife becomes big crisis when our self-deception stops working
What if other people see you or hear you differently than you do?
What if emotional baggage we carry isn’t really our core issue?