In my second year of university, I was arranged to share a dorm with a student with a penchant for photography. She also, unfortunately, had a penchant of leaving used Band-Aids in the shower and marching around singing to herself at four in the morning, but I digress. The important thing was that she enjoyed photography. Usually, she took self-portraits and photos of the scenery around school. One day, however, she turned the camera towards me.
She actually made me think she was taking a picture of something else, and distracted me by making a few jokes. Once she told one that actually made me laugh, she snapped a picture of me smiling naturally, and apparently enjoyed the shot so much she posted it on social media.
When we were talking about it later, I, ever self-conscious, mentioned that I didn’t really smile often like I did in the photo she took of me. I stuck to closed-mouth smiles most of the time. Her demanding response was, “You should always smile like that! You have teeth most people would pay for!”
Well, she was right. I did pay for them. My parents actually paid for my dentist visits throughout childhood, but I think I paid in regards to the pain and ridicule I had to deal with.
I got braces my first year of high school. I remember my parents having a lot of dentist appointments with me when I was younger, though of course I don’t recall much about them besides the fact that my orthodontist had a GameCube in his waiting room and my parents muttered conversations with a specialist could easily be ignored for Sonic Heroes.
Perhaps if I had listened, I would have known that my teeth were terrible. The alignment of my jaw was completely out of whack, and I had a large underbite. I remember my mom watching me when I brushed my teeth, trying to ask me to bite down so my teeth were on top of each other instead of my bottom set jutting out. I couldn’t actually do it, or at least, it physically hurt to. My orthodontist recommended I get braces twice: once when I was about seven, the age I was at then, and then later as a teenager.
My parents, being economically sensitive, refused entirely. I was lucky that my mouth did mainly adjust on its own, and I was 14 before I had to actually get braces for a simple two-year span.
I know I was lucky, but even two years of life with braces was torture. The day I got my braces on for the first time was the day of a camping trip the family was making. I was going to finish up my dentist’s appointment before my family picked me up, grabbed something to eat, and started travelling to the campsite. Unfortunately for me, not only did I have to deal with the usual pain of having metal grates and wires bending your teeth into submission, but I also had a bit of plastic compound put on my bottom molars, to help force my teeth to sit properly. This had the nasty side effect of leaving me unable to completely close my teeth together. I was a sniveling disaster once I discovered I couldn’t even chew a French fry, and had to adjust my diet for a few days before I got used to eating again.
After that, I think having braces was mainly a small burden. I missed popcorn a lot, but I didn’t chew a lot of gum, so I didn’t bemoan that loss. Getting my braces tightened offered the pro of getting to miss class for a while and the con of a few days of pain. And of course, the boys in my class used my ‘braceface’ as an excuse to make fun of me, but they already teased me relentlessly, so that wasn’t an issue. It was torture when I went through it, but now I barely remember it, the only reminder being the metal retainer glued to the back of my bottom teeth, a wire that’ll be there for the rest of my life.
No, the real pain was yet to come for me… and yet to come for those of you who are interested in reading about my sorry escapades. I will have to share the story of how I had my wisdom teeth removed next week. I could say it’s because the experience was so harrowing that even the memories are too painful to bear, but really, I’m just hungry.
I think I’ll make a toast to my teenage braces-burdened self and buy some popcorn.
