Back to the Future

Mercifully, about 16 years ago, I got my braces off. At that time, the orthodontist glued in a permanent retainer behind my four bottom teeth, and there it stayed through high school, college, post-college chaos, graduate school, and since. The retainer traveled with me to many of the continental United States, the territory of Puerto Rico, and a few countries. The retainer was not obvious to most people looking at me (although I am rather animated and I talk a lot, opening my mouth really big, so maybe people did see it sometimes), and it became a part of me--just like, maybe, my navel ring, which I never even see anymore, although it's been there for half my life. I regularly ran my tongue along the ridge of the retainer, and I knew it was there, although I never formally registered that knowledge or cared. The retainer also kind of made it hard to floss, except using this loop-like contraption, which is kind of lame and labor intensive.

Today, I went to an orthodontist at UCLA and there, in his third-floor mural-covered office, that retainer got plucked right out of my mouth without ceremony. I'm so sentimental and resistant to change; I almost cried. I ran my tongue over the spot where it was and there was nothing there and it felt really weird, kind of naked. (When I was the blubbering maid of honor in my sister's wedding, I took out all 19 of my earrings at once for the first time since I'd gotten pierced. It was the same kind of nakedness, a feeling of loss, but it felt clean and uncluttered too.)

So I was there in this orthodonist's office--not five blocks from the orthodonist's office in Westwood where I'd reported for all those torturous braces check-ups and tightenings and general nightmarishness--getting my mouth filled with green goo for making impressions (for a version of my retainer to be worn at night). That very specific faintly minty, generally gross taste--that brought me back. Braces. Woah. I don't relish the idea of getting older (eew! 30's only four months away now! Make time slow down!), but I don't miss the days when those inadequately filed-down wires used to tear up the insides of my cheeks while the Sally Jessie Raphael-red glasses decked my little face, framed by a pre-mousse mane of stringy hair, topped by an uneven row of imitation-chola double-decker bangs. My metabolism may have slowed down, but my hair looks way better now and I have a car.