pulling teeth

It dawned on me recently my life is nothing but a cycle of reoccurring themes, which is both comforting and maddening. Comforting because hopefully I am growing, maddening because I can’t believe I still haven’t learned my lesson. Not for the first time and most certainly not for the last, the relinquishment of control has been a painfully persistent theme. 

For example, the other week I forced myself to go to the doctor, which I hate doing because I am forced to ponder my own mortality. I also hate the doctor’s because I know it’s something I should do but never make time for, then stress myself out thinking I’m dying from some silent killer while being overwhelmed at the thought of making an appointment and having to address said silent killer, if it exists, even though I appear to be perfectly healthy. 

At the doctor’s office, while you are being weighed and pricked and palpated, there is this strange limbo in which anything is possible. After this appointment, I think, my life could change. A nurse named Fawn straps on a blood pressure cuff and pumps the bulb. Maybe I’ll have to undergo cancer treatments or go on a strict diet. I can feel the blood pulsing in my fingers, then released all at once. Maybe I’ll have to inject myself with needles everyday. These are not things I hope for, but they could happen. Life could change at any moment and most of it isn’t up to me. This, too, is both comforting and maddening. There is no controlling anything, not really. Cliche as it is, the present moment is all there is. 

I’d like to think that I will continue to soften as I get older, that surrendering to the processes of life will come more naturally. It’s like pulling teeth, but maybe I am learning: when I was 18, relinquishing control was admitting defeat. At almost 25, it feels like a relief.