Brux

Brux

I wake up at 4:30 am and think I have bits of broken tooth in my mouth from grinding my teeth so hard. There is light coming in from under the bedroom door. My mate’s recent performance review at work did not go well and now he is up every night between 3 and 4 am.

I am claustrophobic in my body. Shut in. I have clenched my jaws so hard I cannot roar.
I cannot even sound my barbaric yawp.

When he leaves for work at 7 am I open my bleary eyes and muster a strange little baby- handed wave, like I am preverbal and speak only the sign language of toddlers.

My grandmother always wore a night guard. She was crushing her own teeth after her second husband died too young.

She wore a plastic guard she kept on the nightstand. I felt sorry for her. I still do.
I began grinding my teeth when I lived in Seattle about eight years ago. I loved my life but I was sick then too. I didn’t know I was still grinding my teeth.

Bruxism. It is almost what it sounds like, feels like.

The gnashing of the teeth.

Do you grind your teeth too?

At 4:30 I could feel the pressure in my skull, could feel it changed shape, that it was an egg under pressure, my soft palate was being flexed beyond capacity

Do you remember when The Giant at the top of the beanstalk says,
“I’ll grind his bones to make me bread.”

Am I trying to cannibalize myself?
Am I so chomping at the bit?

Why yes, yes I am.

Fee Fi Fo Fum.

I feel so locked into my self.

Today in the mirror even my teeth look stressed beyond belief.

So today I have gone to the drug store and bought a nightguard. Made an appt with a TMJ specialist. Scheduled to see a chiropractor. And called the ENT doc. Surely someone somewhere can help me?

In the meantime I will drink more water. I will put hot packs on my head. I just took some liquid benadryl to see if that would relieve the pressure in the side of my head.

But why does it seem that for each good moment, there comes the next moment which takes it away? I meet helpful and nice people at the store but on the drive back a mini cooper and a deer have collided. I see this sort of thing each time I leave the house. Something that hurts me. Something that is hurt.

Why does leaving the house have to be so tragic? Why do the deer and the mini cooper have to collide? Why does the beautiful now damaged deer have to limp and fall, its back leg hitched up to the hip, and then it tries to get back up, succeeds, but has nowhere to go. And why do all the people honk and honk and honk and honk?

This my friends is why I need the gun.

Spring will come soon. I will feel better then.