I’m getting braces.
Okay, so not a full mouth, pick up radio signals, silver (bullet proof) per tooth, but it’s happening.
My orthodontist actually called them “brackets,” but that’s just how he speaks to twenty year olds. “Braces” are for kids with crooked teeth and Hannah Montana backpacks.
“What did you think was going to happen?” My mom asked, sitting next to me in the orthodontist’s office, as I’m wringing my hands and staring at my teeth. Sure as the doc said it, that tooth on the left is moving dangerously behind my other teeth. About a week ago at school, I thought- I should probably get that checked out at home, just to see. Maybe we could do Invisalign, or some deal where they find my old retainer and shove that wayward traveler back into place…
This is not what I thought was going to happen.
“Did you wear your retainer?” He asks, already knowing the answer.
I rack my brain for the words I want to say out loud: “Well, doc, post palatal expander for one year, braces for 7 years ending in 8th grade, and you telling me they were coming off every three months until those months added up ‘til three extra years than what I thought I signed up for, no. The first thing I wanted to do when I could feel my teeth against my tongue again was wear a retainer every night for eight hours.”
I say: “No,” pressing my hands against my face, shaking my head. Crap, crap, crap.
“Well, really what we have to do is…”
“Don’t say it. Do not say it.” ßthis I did say out loud.
“You need brackets. It’s the only way to give the tooth enough room to maneuver it out with the others.”
He talks about my tooth like it’s the loner at a cocktail party, but we all know it’s not that simple. No conversation starters to draw Rebel Tooth in with the rest of the clan. No ease- ins with a laugh and a smile, no cute boy to give her a little wink and invite her in with the other white squares.
I picture the word in my mind, trying to make it something else.
BRAY- SIS.
BRAE- CYS.
BRACES.
“We can put them in today, let’s do it.” He stares at my Mom, my mom stares at me, and back at him, and says, “Can we have a minute?”
So there I sit, peeking through the fingers I have in front of my face, shaking my head.
“What do you want to do?”
Leave. I want to leave with my tooth that isn’t REALLY that bad and probably WON’T move any farther back and will probably NEVER cause me any problems in the future.
I also know that none of these things are probably true.
“Mom, I am so vain. I cannot wear braces at college. Do you know what this means? It doesn’t matter how cute my hair is, how much I love my outfit, or how much my skin is glowing. You just can’t get past the mouth of metal. Once you see that, it’s like- oh, well, she did seem kind of fun and pretty…until she opened her mouth…”
I said this all between two breaths.
She says it’s up to me. Dr. V has asked for six months, but I know there’s no way. I’m about to cry, because this really deep place in me doesn’t want to look like a dweeb for any months, even if I decide to do it only for the three months of summer, and whatever headway we make, we make, and then I will wear my retainer like it’s my full time occupation, so I don’t have to go through this again.
I think these thoughts between two clicks of the second hand.
Dr. V comes over with a smile on his face, and puts his hand on the back of my chair. I turn to face him.
“I will do it for the summer, if you promise me that that’s enough time to really make a difference. I’m willing to give you that.”
“So not today?”
Look: The girl next to me is eleven years old. She reaches up and picks the rubber band color for her braces. She’s so excited. The bands on top of the metal on top of her teeth will now match the color of her I-pod.
Truth: I am twenty years old. I can pass for seventeen. I am getting braces. When I do, I will probably be able to pass for sixteen or fifteen.
“Not today.”
Too soon, too fresh of an idea, too much to think about. But it’s going to happen, friends- April the 28th. B-Day used to stand for the day you were born, but this year for me it’s B for braces, and the day is coming.
Shift.
There is a part of me that is struggling so hard against this. As a woman who at times finds herself swimming in the waters of our world and culture that are lies, lies about all the things we should be and aren’t, lies about all the things we should have that we don’t, it gets difficult. It’s difficult from day to day to wake up, and do the hard but true work of saying, I am indeed beautiful. God made me and I am not just acceptable, or to be tolerated- I am a jewel in the crown of the God who made me, I am delighted in and delightful.
I am what I am. This is not defeat. It is not a phrase that should end with a shrug and a sigh, a look at the floor. “I am who I am, and God made me Who I Am, and I am Beautiful” is what that means, and I will speak it into the mirror, watch the light glimmering off of my brackets, and walk into the world.
I can’t lie; I don’t think braces are going to help me “feel better about myself” on the hard days. But I do think that God is doing something big in me. It’s bigger than braces, and it’s bigger than being twenty and having to deal with an unattractive inconvenience.
I think I will continue to find that these three months (“braced”) are less about me than anything. When I’m focused less on me, and more on what God is doing, and who God is bringing into my life, that’s when the really beautiful things happen.
Where I Am.
When I got home after the appointment today, I held a bobby pin in front of my top teeth just to get a little metal dimension on the chompers.
I am scared. I’m not going to like how they look. I know this already. I cringe when I look at pictures of myself at 12, brace-faced. But that’s okay.
It’s not about how I look.
I was talking to my friend Sarah tonight, and we laughed until tears came to our eyes. She’ll be the one who sees them the most, shining like a beacon over the silver box that is my Apple computer the many days I spend at Fusion Brew (bubble tea and espresso café) this summer. After making as many light-hearted jokes as we could think of (including me getting my teeth stuck in drapery), I paused.
“It’s kind of cool that I’m going to have braces at twenty-- that it will be part of my life story. I mean, who would have thought? I would want to be friends with a person who had braces at twenty. I would want to hear about it.”
So maybe you will.
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