Brace Face

Have you heard that term used before? Brace face. Haha. I think it was once a show on tv too. A cartoon or something.

Well anyways, that's a picture of me in 9th grade. I had glasses and braces.

Now as a senior in high school, I'm for the most part without glasses (I wear contacts) and I'm with straight teeth and no braces.

I'm writing about this today because on this day 3 years ago, I got my braces taken off. I only wore them for almost 2 years. Now, I also had headgear, but I don't have a picture of that. I had a palate expander, which made it really difficult to eat spaghetti. I would choke on the spaghetti, so I couldn't eat spaghetti then.

I have a Bible that is in the form of a magazine. It's a Biblezine called Revolve and along with the Bible, it also has tips and other things for girls. One thing I found was about braces. It said this:

Brace yourself. If you're embarrassed by annoying braces on your teeth (though you really shouldn't be!), don't make the mistake of being stingy with your gorgeous smile. Keep lip color neutral, soft, and not overly shiny, and smile on with the warmth of Christ that you have in your heart. Draw attention to your shining eyes instead of to your lips, and no one will even notice the extra hardware on your teeth.

I just thought that was cool. Truth be told, I miss wearing braces. That's not something you may hear a lot. But hey, I'm weird like that. Now though, I wear retainers (or I'm supposed to). Actually I wear them off and on. As of fall of last year, I'm officially done with orthodontia, so I don't actually have to wear my retainers, but I don't want my teeth to shift back to how they were. I had a gap in between my two front teeth. My dad has that gap. I have his teeth.

That picture up there was taken probably a month before I got my braces off, so my teeth were pretty straight then. Oh yeah and after getting my braces off, my orthodontist gave me a bag of candy. Sweetness!

So if you have to get braces, don't worry about it. It's a normal part of growing up for some people. It's really not that embarrassing. A lot of people at my school have had braces. And if you're totally weird like me, you might miss having them after they get taken off.

Shine on. Smile on.