Insecure Me: That One Thing, Part 2

So What Do You Do?

What do you do when your biggest insecurity has been highlighted?  I cannot cover my smile with makeup or camouflage it with clothes.  I cannot make it go away with exercise or better eating habits.  I am stuck just watching the calendar and waiting until the day when my teeth will descend and my braces will finally be removed.

Missing my two canines

 The hardest time in this journey of my life came about six months ago.  The orthodontist looked at my X-rays and I knew by her mannerisms that something was wrong.  It turned out that the canine tooth on my right side had not moved at all after three months of treatment.  It was a hard blow.  Now, not only was I stuck in these stupid braces, with two missing teeth, but one of them was not even moving.  That put my treatment behind schedule and put me into a bit of a depression.  It is pretty difficult right now to look in the mirror and see this beautiful person and then smile and see all of that disappear.  All I can see when I smile is the two gaping holes where my teeth are gone and these bulky goofy braces.  I was in a hard place for awhile but I refused to give up and I kept hoping and believing that the tooth would move.  There were days that I looked in the mirror or at pictures of me smiling (see above) and hated what I saw and there were days where it nearly made me cry, but I refused to give in to the negative emotions and I refused to shed a tear over something that in all honesty, is so trivial.  Am I a worse person because of braces?  No.  Have I hurt anyone else by not having two teeth?  No.  But I certainly have learned a lot about myself and I have found my own inner strength and that matters so much more than teeth.

After realizing that the tooth was not moving, the orthodontist changed the way my braces were anchored and used stronger (but more painful) wires to attach the chain and the braces.  At my next X-ray appointment, we saw that the tooth was slowly but surely moving at last.  It gave me hope to keep believing.

If you look really closely, you can see the tip of the left canine.

At my appointment in December, the orthodontist assistant did the next round of bite wing X-rays and found that the left canine was right at the surface.  Just a few days later, it made its first appearance in the world and you can currently see the tip of it with the naked eye!  The right one is still far from the surface, but at last it is moving and I received a jolt of faith to keep going with the process just when I needed it most.  While I still do not like the look of my smile right now, I know it is getting better and when I go to my appointment on Thursday (tomorrow!), I will be excited to show them my progress and find out what the next adjustment will bring.