Irony

I was lucky in some ways. My teeth were pretty straight. The only real problem was that I had a very noticeable gap between my two front teeth. This bothered me, but since we didn't have orthodontic insurance, it was decided that a space between the two front teeth wasn't worth the investment for braces. I lived with that decision, but was still self-conscious about the gap.

When I was fifteen my friend, Julie, got braces. I'm not sure who came up with the idea, but she gave me some of her bands and I began my own self-administered orthodontic program. I began wearing a band around the two front teeth. It was a painful process, but slowly my two teeth came together and I had a straight, un-gapped smile I was pretty proud of.

The problem was that within a few weeks of removing the band, my teeth began to shift back to their original position. Back came the band. I went through this process a couple of painful times. One day, while wearing the bands, my baby brother reared back, as babies sometimes do, and hit me in the mouth with his head. I felt like those two teeth were going to drop right out of their sockets. The pain was awful. I decided at that moment that if my teeth weren't going to stay put, it wasn't worth the hassle and the agony.

A little over a year ago, I was flossing my teeth and realized that my two front teeth had come together. No braces. No bands. But somehow they now touched. My teeth looked straight and spaceless. All I'd ever had to do was wait a few decades and the problem was solved.

Then last fall, on the front page of MSN I found this. Now a space between the teeth is considered beautiful, even desired. A whole crew of gap-toothed beauties are walking the runways and starring in movies.

And my space is gone.

Comments

Leslie said…
funny thing is... i would have guessed your gap was gone way more years ago than just one. i guess i haven't noticed it being there for many many years.

you are beautiful both ways.

now if the models on the runway can just start making adult acne a beautiful thing, that would be great. :) hahaha.

love you.
I read that article awhile ago, funny how if we just wait patiently things always seem to become popular. Who is it that makes that happen?
Have a great day....
Anonymous said…
haha That's funny.
Mindy said…
Oh, I'm laughing at Leslie now! Yes! Let's make adult acne the "thing"! ;)
Anonymous said…
You are amazing at telling a story. this was so cute and so typical of a teenager. My source of embarrassment was my nose. I got bumped in my nose once when I was young. After that I was sure my nose was huge and weird. I would look at my nose in a mirror to get a side view and just cringe.
then one day I looked at my sister, who I thought (and still do) was beautiful, and noticed her nose was just like mine. After that, I was okay with my nose. Have a good day and thanks again for brightening my day.
Unknown said…
I just put veneers on. That way, when the fad came back around for a space, I could just pop those suckers right off! - Assuming I would want to.

(Deep down inside, I'm still cursing those with straight front teeth though.)