Vanity Is a Must (wink)

I am convinced that when you need to get a service that has to do with your aesthetics and you have to get it from either a male or female provider, there's a higher chance that a female provider will be more empathetic to non-Western—i.e., embodied—reasons why such a service may be necessary. Be it for your mental health, spiritual self, or just because, when systems treat you like a system and not a person, they tend to have the final say in what happens to you. Isn't that some fucked-up shit?

Why am I on this path today? And no, I haven't gotten a Brazilian butt lift. Instead, what I got was my chipped tooth fixed. This is the third damn time I am doing anything on this tooth.

Let me give you the background. In the year 2024, right before the United States of America discontinued the Fulbright-Hays Program, I was one of the fortunate ones to get the fellowship (yuh I know, I'm smart as hell). My rather ambitious research took me to multiple parts of Ghana. My first stop after landing in Accra was Tamale.

It is in Tamale that my dental nightmare was written (inserts dramatic beat!).

One very dusty morning or afternoon—I cannot really remember—I somehow forgot that the food I was eating was on the spoon that was in my mouth, and that the spoon had not fully come out of my mouth, and I proceeded to start chewing. Brothers and sisters, I bit onto the METAL spoon, and I chipped my damn tooth.

Now I was aware of the chip, but it wasn't too obvious, so I managed it. It was fine until a dentist fucked it up. She "fixed" it by filing it down and adding a filling. A few weeks later the filling fell out. I called in, she redid it, and that was when she told me that I practically was not allowed to bite food with my teeth. "You really did not think this was important information to give me before you decided to cut off part of my enamel?"

Anyway, I decided to give her another chance at fixing it because she said it was fixable, and she did it for free. And oh, to put this filling on the second time, she had to file part of my teeth… again. And guess what, the filling fell the fuck out. Now you have me here looking like a pseudo-vampire born with a bad front tooth. Maybe it's an exaggeration of what it looked like, but I did not feel good about it at all. I asked about this dentist, and I heard that she is no longer in the practice. (How convenient.)

So now to my current story. Those of you who may be following this virtual journal already know that life has been life, shit has been shitting, my mental has been mentaling, and pretty much I have not quite understood the point of much of anything in a very damn long time. But recently, I've been trying to make myself make different choices by tapping into old versions of me who had certain characteristics and behaviors which, if I reflect critically, served their purpose but also could traverse into self-sabotage and destruction. Growth is understanding that I can reach back to pull forth certain things more intentionally to serve very specific purposes.

In my case, I am in an era of my life where I am feeling every damn thing. Everything is going through me, and I don't even know if I'm going through things. As someone who only knew being "hard" because I needed it to survive and for a long time had no model for emotional literacy (what is that sef?), opening the sensitive self I did not even know was tucked away has been hells hell! It has also been beautiful. This healing thing eh, just when you think you have a grasp—ghen ghen—another layer too dey show!

Anyway, the downside of feeling so much is that if care is not taken, I may lose functionality. I need to be able to balance grounding of self with allowing the self to feel. It is in the spirit of this balance and harmony that I decided: fuck it. I am a good-looking woman. I have a pretty body. While a lot of things don't bother me, let me not cap—when my skin isn't looking great, it annoys me. I can easily overlook it because I know I am beautiful regardless, but it annoys me. And while I like to be comfortable, I do care about what I look like—not for anyone's approval, but for my damn self. Fuck humility, really. Fuck that shit. And maybe I need to tap into a healthy amount of vanity, because why the fuck not? Call me the lizard that jumped off the iroko tree. I might as well do the things I think are best for how I feel about myself. Yes, there are going to be things in life that I would have to adjust to. Omo, this broken tooth has collected its taxes. Two years is long. E don do.

So with the plan being "find a dentist"—which by the way, was the only plan—I found a dentist. I arrive at their office, it's about 10 minutes away from where I live. "Hello hello," no one answers. I walk through the open door into the compound, and they are huddled around a table. Someone walks to me and tells me they are about to have breakfast. Good for them.

I am charged 150 cedis for my consultation, only for me to go inside for about five minutes, and this dentist—who is XY chromosome—tells me that unfortunately he can't file the tooth for "sensitivity reasons." I entered that office with a game plan o, because I have enough teeth in the front that I can afford to file down. Besides, the dentist who fucked the tooth up already did some filing and there was no sensitivity. He goes on to tell me that no dentist will agree to fix the teeth by filing down, and after I tell him a dentist in the US said it was possible, he changes the narrative and says he doesn't feel confident about doing the procedure. I thank the dude for his time, step out, and call the next dental clinic I can find on Google with good reviews.

As I wait for my Uber, I reflect on two people I know with similar stories of wanting procedures that practitioners refuse. You know what happened to my homegirl with debilitating abdominal pain and bleeding? It took the blood of Jesus, Holy Ghost fire, and the devil doing a 30-day fast while pouring daily libations for her to find someone who would give her a hysterectomy. In her case, their concern was: "What if you want children in the future?" My girl DOES NOT WANT KIDS, yet the unlikely possibility was enough reason for the system to decide she should live in pain. Eventually, she was able to find someone who would do the procedure for her, and her quality of life has improved.

My current beef is located in Ghana, however this is not peculiar to the Black Star of Africa. Policing of women's bodies happens everywhere, and in the US now, things are wild. Sex education is sub-par, yet should you slip up and get pregnant, you could be jailed for wanting or getting an abortion. Even married women are concerned: what if there's an accidental pregnancy? Dr. Raquel Martin, a respected psychologist and feminist, expressed the above sentiment a few days ago on Instagram. She does not want another child. Yet physicians are adamant about not giving her what she wants for her body.

Now, the issue of people wanting take-backsies is real. From my experience though, physicians do not always provide information for people to make informed decisions. Some shit will happen, and then there's a boo-boo, you go to the doctor, and then they say, "Oh, yeah, xyz was a possible side effect of blah blah blah." Like, tell me if a rotating eyeball is a side effect of wanting my teeth filled or filed? Maybe that'll scare me enough because it is not a cost I want to pay! GIVE ME INFORMATION AND LET ME CONSENT… or not!

Anyway, back to my whole teeth debacle. This XY chromosome dentist refuses to do it. SO I go on Google, look up other dental places, find a few with good reviews, and pick one. By the powers that be—and the powers that run enjoyment in Ghana—this tooth is getting fixed tuh-day! I call them and go straight to the point: "Look, I need to get this tooth fixed because it's interfering with my quality of life. I have tried to manage this thing for over a year, and I don't wanna do this anymore." It turns into a series of back-and-forth questions: “Tell me why you wanna do it”—which I had already mentioned, but I reiterated—and then they are like, "Send us a picture. The doctor wants to know if it's something that they can do. You do understand sensitivity could happen, right?" They ask me all these questions on the phone. I go in (they are about 10 minutes from the previous office), sit down, fill a form, wait for the doctor. I pay 50 cedis more for my consultation, but it was completely worth it. They had my time. My dentist and all her assistants were female. The kind of patience, the kind of care I experienced from the entire team, particularly the dentist, is the kind of stuff that would motivate someone to say, "Here is $5000 for shege reason."

I do not claim men are incapable of providing care, but there's a kind of carelessness and a lack of regard for the multiple reasons why people may want certain things that may not be "medically necessary," especially when it comes to female bodies, that male practitioners don't pay attention to or take seriously.

An example of this is my first ever visit to a gynecologist. He was male. I am legs open wide in front of a man I do not know, having things pushed inside of me for a vaginal exam. Most females can relate to the discomfort of your first gynecological exam. Mind you, I went there for painful periods and also to start pap smears. During the session, I tell him about sex being painful. I had some complaints because at that time (when I still thought I was a ruler—ha ha), penetrative sex with male partners would hurt. His response to me was, "I mean you're pretty small and petite, so that could be the reason. Maybe they are going deep inside of you." That was what my gynecologist told me. It would take me over 10 years before I would have a gynecologist (female) who would take my complaints of menstrual cramps and pain seriously. She did not sum it down to my petite size and big dick.

Is it not ironic how the same problems within the medical system show up dressed in different labels and brands of different types of care? Oncology, dentistry, gynecology, urology, family health, and all the other -ogies. It's a lot more alarming for black women, queer folx, people of lower social class, and other marginalized groups. YES, including females in general. Same bullshit, different industry. Someone goes through it in trying to get dialysis. I am going through an iteration of this in relation to my damn teeth.

Anyway, I think when they wrote—whoever wrote it, God bless you—when they wrote "what God has put together, let no one put asunder," and the moving of the mountain, Mohammed going to the mountain—you know what I'm talking about—whoever came up with those things, in summary: wherever there's a will, there's a way. I just needed to find the person who would actually hear me and not invalidate the fact that I know what I know, and I know what I want. Besides, you were not going to do this shit for me for free.

Anyway, here is to living vainly (a healthy amount of course)!