Ever since I was a young child, on almost every first day of school one of the first questions we were asked was, "What's your favorite part about yourself?" and I would answer, "my creativity". Being creative was mostly always easy for me and it has genuinely been the thing I've valued most about myself my entire life. I've always told myself that if I ever lost it, I may as well not exist anymore because my life would be pointless and I wouldn't be able to fulfill whatever destiny that either myself, or whatever God had bestowed upon me.

My cycling depression which has come and gone since high school has always had the same theme of longing for the past, where a supposedly better, funnier, more creative me existed. I go obsessing and digging through old pictures, listening to old recordings of myself, and trying to find any piece of stupid evidence that a GREATER & BETTER me once existed and that the current ME is just a molted version of me that has zero chance of achieving that perfect version of my past self again. And the funny thing is is that this time, I'm obsessing over a version of myself that was literally the most depressed, most lost, and most suicidal version of myself that has ever existed.

Now, usually when this depressive/longing process begins, the evidence that I'm looking at to convince me that I'm not either creative or funny is maybe an event in my life or just a certain period. This time is different, this time I have something PHYSICAL to prove to myself that I am less than. In December 2017, I had my wisdom teeth removed and without asking me, the doctor removed my "lucky tooth" which was an extra tooth that I had in front of one of my molars. It has been gone for nearly FIVE years and just two weeks ago, I started attributing it to once again losing my creativity and whatever charm I thought I once had. Ive been obsessively looking through pictures from before and after it was removed and have come to convince myself that the person who I was before the tooth was removed was way more talented than my current self and had the potential to do the great things that I once thought I accomplished in life. This whole thing may be really weird, but I also obsessively lick the area where it once was, take pictures of it, look up the connections between teeth psychology and try to imagine in my head whether or not I could go back in time to tell the doctor not to remove it. Sometimes, I somehow literally feel pain or an emptiness in the area or when I try to think of something creative, the empty area tingles as if my brain is trying to garner some creative power from some power source that doesn't exist anymore. Of course, this research I conduct usually leads to nothing but sometimes I will find things that I will use to JUSTIFY the fact that this tooth once gave me magical, creative powers. One damning thing I found out last night was that Freddy Mercury had two extra teeth that he refused to have removed because he though they made his voice sound better.

And there are times that I realize that this thing was just a freakin tooth and has no connections to my personality and even my brain for that matter. And I do sometimes realize that I'm literally the same exact person I've been my whole life and that a tooth wouldn't be able to change that. And I do sometimes realize that between now and when the tooth was removed that I went through a college experience that drained me, pushed my brain to the limit, and also put me through the lowest interpersonal experiences I've ever gone through in my life. BUT, these rational thoughts have only gotten me so far and usually last only a night or a morning. I eventually go back to licking the area or looking at pictures of myself before the removal. Have I convinced myself of something that doesn't exist? Of a fantasy? Is my imagination literally driving me insane? This whole thing has to all be in my head, right?

I need help, BAD, and the only solutions that I have come up with are to see a therapist, get the gap where the tooth once was filled, or to get a crown on my perfectly healthy molar so that I hopefully forget that I had this "lucky" tooth in the first place. Thank you for reading my essay and hopefully it at least makes a little sense.

-Kai