Sometimes It Really Does Suck To Be A Grownup

I am probably the last person who would actually call myself a grownup, but every once in a while the harsh reality comes crashing home. I mean, I am a mom after all.

That is to say, for the most part I consider myself a responsible individual. I take care of my daughter, I keep our house (relatively) clean, I do the grocery shopping, cook the meals, pay bills on time. All of that adult-type stuff. But in my mind I am still not really grown up, not yet. I don't know that I'll truly consider myself grown up when I'm pushing retirement age.

But still, I am a grown woman, and that means that in addition to taking care of other people, I need to remember to take care of myself. When you're a kid, the adults around you generally make sure you do the things you need to do. Things like taking you to the doctor or the dentist.

While I have for the most part been pretty good about my checkups and other health concerns, I have totally slacked in the going to the dentist part of responsibility, and I am really wishing there had been someone to make me take care of that because now I am paying the price.

All of that is a long-winded way of saying that I have put off going to the dentist for much longer than I care to admit. I am not scared of going to the dentist. I know that is a factor for a lot of people. It's the price tag of all of the work I have known I would need to be getting done after putting it off for so long that has deterred me. Yeah, I know, the longer I waited, the worse it got. Should have just gotten it over with. But it was so much easier not to go, and so, I didn't.

Which means that after suffering from massive toothaches all weekend long, yesterday I found myself spending much of the day in the dentist's chair getting all kinds of crazy (and painful) work done on my teeth. Yay (said in my best Brody/Volker impression). The rest of the day was spent waiting to regain feeling in the left half of my mouth and trying not to pass out in the living room while my absolutely wonderful, kind, caring, awesome husband worked from home and wrangled our daughter and picked up my prescriptions (hello, hydrocodone) and brought me mashed potatoes.

I love him very, very, VERY much.

So for the next few days I will be on a steady diet of mashed potatoes and jello while my mouth heals back up. Then I get to go back in a few weeks and get the other half of my mouth finished up. And you can bet your ass after that I will be making regular checkups with the dentist a priority.

It always seems lessons learned as an adult are much harsher than those I learned as a child. The worst part though is that in most cases, and this is certainly no exception, I have no one to blame for the situation but myself.