Countdown to Freedom

i can't believe it's already been more than two years.

Two years of stuck food. Tight rubber bands. A frequently cut tongue. Banned foods. Poking wires. Closed-mouth smiles. Getting carded at Trader Joe's. (Actually, I kinda like that last one.)

But it's almost over. On July 22, my braces come off. And I finally won't look like Blogger Baby's teenage father. (OK, the white in my goatee pretty much nixed that.)

It almost doesn't seem real. I've gotten so used to these things, that I'm worried the second they come off my teeth will revert back to their old ways. It's strange -- I want these braces off, yet I'm not anxious about it.

Quite a contrast to May 2003, when the pain of my new braces was so fierce, I couldn't concentrate on anything else. I ran to the store and bought cans of baby food, jars of applesauce and cups of pudding, thinking I'd have to survive on nothing but soft food.

But I quickly adapted to my new reality. I lost some weight -- ahh, the braces diet -- but later gained it back as I learned to keep eating just about anything, excepting corn on the cob.

I also managed to get through the two years without feeling like too much of an oddity. As a matter of fact, my braces were such a non-issue, and people so rarely commented on them, that I would conciously forget that I even weared them.

Until my next meal, of course, when half of what i ate got lodged in my teeth. I'm looking forward the most to being able to eat without having to excavate my mouth afterward.

In the end, I think I'm gonna have to say it was worth it. The time flew by fast -- and if I hadn't fixed my teeth, two years would have passed anyway, and my teeth would have been the same.