Hurricanes and tooth extractions
/Halifax was hit by Hurricane Dorian, the same storm that caused so much damage in the Bahamas, last weekend. It was only a category 2 by the time it got here, but we’re not really accustomed to the storms being hurricane-strength when they reach Canada. I remember when Hurricane Juan hit the city about 16 years ago, but I wasn’t living in the city back then (I was still at university about two or so hours away in Sackville, NB); Dorian wasn’t quite as intense but it cut a wider swath through the province, and quite a few people were without power for a while.
I fared alright during the storm; I lost power for about a day, but I was safe inside with Autumn, if not a little bored by the time it got dark. The building down the hill from mine wasn’t as lucky; the winds lifted part of the roof off and the residents had to evacuate. There was also a crane downtown not too far from where I work that collapsed over top of a building being built; thankfully, nobody was hurt, but that portion of the street is still closed off and a number of residents and local businesses (particularly the Beergarden and the dairy bar) are still affected by this accident.
Other than that, I haven’t been too busy, mainly because I’ve been recovering from a few bouts of oral surgery. I finally saw a dentist for the first time in ages (now that I actually have dental benefits) to take care of some tooth pain. A few of my teeth were already broken beyond repair (which wasn’t a surprise) and I had an infection (again, not a surprise). I had my wisdom teeth taken out almost 10 years ago, so the whole “soft and cool foods” ritual was familiar to me, but I still didn’t feel like doing a whole lot for the last two weeks. You tend not to want to talk to anyone on the bus when you have a mouth full of gauze and blood, and even after the original wound clots, you just need to take it easy for a while.
I’m trying to get my writing inspiration back. The trouble with taking it easy and spending a lot of time by yourself is that you tend not to have much else to talk about, so you have to wait for big things like a storm or getting teeth yanked out to get you outside of the echo chamber that is your mind.
Ever since Pride, I’ve been trying to reconnect with the parts of myself that I buried away over the past few years when my big concerns were trying to keep the bills paid and finding non-precarious employment. Maybe it was an impostor syndrome thing, like I didn’t feel like I truly had any right to call myself anything besides what I thought my boss (current or potential) wanted me to be. Sometimes I’m just a little too afraid of what other people might think of me, especially when I’m at the point where I’m not fully comfortable around them and try to downplay my various forms of weirdness.
I just wish I could just shut up and write or do whatever without overthinking things, or feeling like it’s an imposition.
