I just recently had to have a complicated root canal that involved several dental visits and two hardcore antibiotics. So when I mentioned to my husband that I was now feeling soreness on my bottom left line of molars, he said to me, “Don’t wait until a 5 alarm fire to make the appointment. A fire is a fire, but smaller fires are easier to put out.”
I like to think of myself as the wise, deep thinker of our relationship, but the facts are, my husband is every bit as wise and deep as I am, probably more so. (he just doesn’t pontificate as much as I do) And this fire analogy is one that certainly deserves to be in this thought museum that we call Adulting – Second Half.
We do this to ourselves all of the time, don’t we? (at least I do) We often, deep down know that things are beginning to smolder somewhere – in our bodies, in our relationships, in our homes, in our jobs, in our daily habits, in our finances, etc. but we don’t really want to deal with the little fires. They are annoying. They’re not that big of a deal. Anyway, we don’t have time (nor desire) to deal with them right now. We think that if we just ignore these little bothers and issues, they might just disappear.
When raising my kids and something relatively minor happened with one of them, say a parking ticket, or a bad grade, or sleeping in late, etc., I would always admonish them to take the lesson early. There are small consequences for small mistakes, but if you don’t learn the lesson, the Universe is sure to send you a bigger version of the teaching, until you finally learn the lesson and change direction. I would say, “Consider yourself lucky that the Universe usually sends small hints and experiences to learn from, unless you don’t heed the lesson and you are finally hit over the head with a big ol’ hammer of a lesson for not heeding the breadcrumbs which were being sent to you, all along the way.”
So I heeded my husband’s good reminder about degrees of fires, and I went back to my dentist yesterday. “You again?” the entire office staff teased me, with mixed looks of pity, concern, and empathy. I sat down (once again) in my dentist’s chair and I told him what my husband said about fires. “Well, let’s take a look,” he said kindly. And what the x-ray showed was not decay. My teeth were all healthy. It appeared that my back molars were sore because my bite was “off” from my recently replaced crown. He shaved down a little bit of my back molar, charged me nothing to do it, and sent me on my way – happy, relieved and smiling. Another fire put out!
And now on to a plumbing issue, although this one doesn’t really fit the fire analogy quite as well . . . .
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.