Losing my edge

Every decade after my happy first, the Tooth Fairy has bestowed a new, unwelcome dental truth upon me: in my 40s, via a root canal. An uneventful one, as these things go. Only six hours passed between the throb that woke me up and the needle that dialed me down and the little saw that stole the pain away forever. I didn’t even have to get a crown. My tooth was still my tooth. Till yesterday, when I brought a loose thread hanging from my sweater to my teeth and realized I could no longer feel how hard to bite.