brace face

eight years ago today was a most historical and monumental day in my formative teenage years. on a sunny april morning, a mere two days before my sixteenth birthday, i got my braces removed. i got my groove back. it was, like, the best day of my life.

i had been cursed with orthodontia for a combined three and a half years. the FIRST (yes, first...apparently i needed braces twice because my teeth were fubar) time i had braces, i was too young to really care. i even thought they were, like, a little bit cool. granted, i only had them for about six months, and they were only on my top four teeth. i was in the 4th grade, before it matters what you look like.

but oh how things changed the second time i was condemned to the most medieval and barbaric punishment of teenage orthodontia. take a kid whose self confidence is already shaky, then slap a set of wire on her teeth, forcing her to talk funny, refrain from eating popcorn and gum, to have terribly sore gums and lips, and to not smile, like, ever. i took the worst pictures then. i adopted the "i-am-not-going-to-show-my-teeth-when-i-smile-so-instead-i'll-just-awkwardly-cover-my-teeth-with-my-lips-so-they-puff-out-all-weird-like-a-fish" picture face. attractive. not.

i grew a strong and spiteful hatred for my orthodontist each time i lay back in the slippery, yellow vinyl chairs, hoping to high heaven that it would be the day that they would decide to take my braces off. but each time, my hopes were demolished as the ditzy assistant would open a tiny drawer, remove a packet of colored chains and ask me in an annoying southern accent, "which colors d'ya wanna pick this time?" i hated her, with her stupid pink and purple aquatic life-themed scrubs. as she snipped off each little ring, holding it out to the torture master, er, doctor, i wanted to cry. no, i actually wanted to reach up and grab his little face mask and hold it out and let go so it would snap back into his face. i hated him, too.

looking back, though, there are some things to laugh about that came about as a result of my epic journey in braceland. like the time i wore so many rubber bands that i actually moved my teeth too much, resulting in another six months of unnecessary appointments before they were able to be removed. or the time that i elected, for some unknown reason, to get navy blue and black bands around my teeth. it looked like i either had a worse grill than flavor flav or had lost some major teeth in a championship fight. plus, navy blue and black don't even match.

but one story really burns a hole in my brain because of its positive correlation between humiliation and hilarity. one particularly blustery weekend in january my mother and i took our yearly weekend trip to new york. we'd catch a couple of broadway shows, explore the lower east side's galleries and boutiques, and always go to our favorite bakery to have tea and black and white cookies. as we were exiting the bakery, a gust of wind ripped the paper bag out of my mittened hand and blew it down the city block. "grab it!" my anti-littering mother wailed. "run! pick it up!!" immediately i took off after the bag, tumbling down the street. i ran, hunched over like quasimodo trying to reach down and pick the bag up, dodging the booted feet of annoyed pedestrians. i found myself stumbling, a few times actually stepping on the bag, only to prematurely pick my foot up before my hand grabbed the bag, and have the wind blow it further away again.

finally, after about a block and a half, in slow motion, i grabbed that stupid paper bag for good. i held it aloft in the air, while my mother, a few buildings behind me, was doubled over in hysterics. my eyes were watering from the cold air blasting into them, my nose was running, and seeing my mother's contagious reaction, i too began to laugh. only, the laugh of a brace wearer is different from one who is virgin toothed. instead of exhibiting the carefree, jocular, open-mouthed guffaw as i was accustomed to, as a braceface i was forced to adapt. my laugh morphed to include the hand-to-mouth barrier, ensuring no impressionable children or weak-stomached beings would be shocked and offended by the hideous sight of my laughing open braces mouth blindingly glinting in the daylight.

only problem was that i was wearing the world's thickest, fuzziest mittens. as i raised my hand to cover my teeth, the yarn became trapped in the cruel collection of wires on my mouth, and it wasn't going anywhere. i tugged and tugged my hand away from my mouth, to no avail. my eyes widened with fear, a-la-David After Dentist ("is this gonna be for forever??") my hand simply would not detach itself from my mouth. "what's wrong?" my mother asked. "my miththens thtuck!" i desperately tried to convey. "i canth geth my mitthten offh!!" i tugged furiously. my mother laughed even harder. a small crowd was gathering. i was mortified.

finally, with one swift rip, i managed to release my mittened hand from my mouth. out of breath, i wanted to collapse onto the pavement after such a calamitous ordeal. my own mother could not contain her hysterics. tears were streaming down my face as a combined result of humiliation, laughter, and sheer cold. i was picking white mitten fuzz from my brackets for days after.

every time i think of this story, it gets funnier than the last time i thought of it. i really hated myself when i had braces. but those years of self-consciousness and embarrassment were important to make me realize now that those feelings are really unfounded, and that i don't want to think of myself in that way every again. and as much as the whole experience was just really awful, stories like this remind me of the ironic awkwardness of it all.

and now, my teeth are pretty, and i can laugh as much as a i want.