Everyone Needs a Little Space



     Kids can be mean.  Adults can be mean in more subtle ways. 

Baby Gap



     Big surprise.  When people are a little bit different, they get called out.  Some become withdrawn because of the relentless taunting.  And others become highly adaptable.  Often they'll turn what others perceive to be a weakness into a strength.  Growing up, for me, there was more than one obstacle to overcome.  The biggest was being a brainy girl with glasses.  Then came acne.  And curves.  Oh yeah, and the space between my two front teeth. 

     As an adult, I've embraced my inner geek.  I like the library, I like politics, I like esoteric concepts, I like museums, I like baseball.  I've wrestled with contacts and I accept glasses.  Acne -- yeah, a constant battle.  Curves?  I'm curvy.  I can lose weight, but I'm still curvy.  I accept it.  Gap in my teeth?  Get back to you on that one. 

     My folks are handsome people.  My brothers are gorgeous men.  My stepsister was a model at one point in her life.  Tall, lanky, Cher-haired.  With bucked teeth.  Karen sucked her thumb long into her teens and she needed braces.  She got the I-can't-drink-from-a-water-fountain headgear.  So did my brother.  Temporary and cosmetic.  I've often laughed that I got all the recessive genes in the family.  Tall, beautiful, naturally thin, athletic, graceful.  Nope.  I'm stumpy, busty, clumsy, asthmatic, myopic, and I like to read.   Pretty seemed to pass over me, and went right to my daughter.  But probably I am the funniest one in our family, and I'm often the listener / relationship fixer.  And I do have the trait that seems to bind us -- Good teeth and beautiful smiles seem to run in our family. 

     For me, my smile is my best asset.  Except, I have a gap in my front teeth the size of Texas.  Of course, this was a strength.  I was the water-spittin' champeen.  I could force water between the space in my teeth clear across the pool.  No one could beat me.  Not even on a bad day.  But, water-spittin' champs are not exactly date-night material.  I didn't wear my crown too long into high school.  One thing I figured I couldn't change was the gap in my front teeth. Yeah, it might make me look like a hick, and yeah, I'm the only one in the family who has it.  Like a lot of things we can't change, there comes a graceful acceptance.   Our family dentist never recommended braces for me. In fact, closing the gap was never discussed as an option.  Move on. 

     Brainy with glasses was a little harder to overcome.  Brainy with glasses and acne was harder still.  The year I turned age 13, I broke out.  Not the kind of acne one sees on ProActiv ads.  It was the kind that makes people go "Eww."  So bad it hurt to wear a T-shirt.  Neck, back, arms, face, groin, legs.  I called my mom that summer from Michigan.  My dad said he wouldn't date me if he were a boy.  To which I said: Gah!  Yeah, Dad.  Hullo.  My dad laughed.  My mom somehow knew it was worse than my dad was letting on by phone and she made a dermatology appointment before I flew back to Florida. 

    
     "Tonya, it's the worst case of acne I've ever seen," said the dermo.  Which wouldn't have been so bad if he were a shriveled up old prune, but he was a young doctor, tall and hunky.  Mom smiled, asked for the prescriptions and made the return appointments.  Over time, I've developed a love-hate relationship with my doctors.  If I have to go, I know it's going to be bad.  It's never been an immediate cure. 

     It took months to clear.  And he was the same doctor who suggested birth-control pills in my early 20s to keep it at bay.  He was right.  But our bodies change, and into my 40s the acne's returned.  That's another story.  Back to the brainy girl with glasses and gapped teeth. 

 As if there aren't enough changes at age 13, I had a butt and boobs.  And a tiny waist.   My Island and African-American friends say people with split teeth wear their clothes well. They always are attractive. And I learned early what well-fitting clothes can do.  I wasn't at all built like the stick-straight girls of my youth.  And I was teased.   My God-fearing Baptist boyfriend's mother couldn't wait to see me in a swimsuit when I was in high school.  She thought I cast a magical spell on her son and she wanted to see if I could work the same juju on her.  Could I possibly be the same girl who played tag football in her backyard?  Of course, I knew my assets by age 17 and showed up in a French-cut burgundy maillot with underwires.  The same boy talks this day about the fishnets and seamed stockings, and a pencil skirt, I wore in college.  All with glasses, a gap in my teeth, and enough brains to get into an honors program. 

     So, my gap-tooth smile never bothered me.  Until I decided to get one of those Glamour Shot photos.  I was in my 30s, thinner than I had ever been.  My daughter was nearing school age.  My hair was dark, glossy, stick straight and perfectly cut.  My skin was flawless.  The photographer retouched my teeth.  What the hell?

    Madonna, Lauren Hutton, David Letterman, Condoleezza Rice, Mike Strahan, Mike Tyson -- okay, maybe not Mike Tyson -- there are a lot of famous people who have space between their teeth.  And they do all right.  But here I was, insecure about the one thing I get complimented on daily: My smile. 

    Not long after, my dentist suggested braces to close the gap.  To be fair, I've had four oral surgeries because of the gap.  My senior year of high school, I entered the first day with my teeth wrapped in foil after a surgery a week or so beforehand.  I've had my lip cut and sewn twice.  But this was the family dentist of my childhood.  Could he not suggest braces when my dad had the Cadillac of insurance plans through General Motors?  Could he maybe have suggested it when I was a kid and everyone had braces?  Why now as an adult?  I've lived with what most people consider to be an ugly feature for 46 years. 

     "Tonya, we're gonna have to do surgery again.  We can close it so you don't have to deal with it, or you can come back for surgery," was my dentist's pitch in recommending his partner, the orthodontist.  The orthodontist was honest enough to say that he couldn't close it.  I'd need a bar inset behind the front teeth after the braces came off, and even that wasn't a guarantee that the gap would stay closed.  Given a choice between digging the equivalent of the Panama Canal behind my front teeth and inserting a piece of steel or a few weeks with a fat lip, I opted for surgery. 

http://www.northriverdental.com/gallery.asp
http://www.gap-toothed.com/

"Cool, Ton, I can teabag you.  It says so right here."  My then-husband held up the recovery instructions.  Apparently, there are enough tannins in a standard tea "sachet" to speed healing, and a steeped tea bag was recommended.  Sitting in the chair, juiced up on Novocain, cotton sticking out of my mouth, and the surgeon ready, all I could do was laugh.  "Right here?  I think the chair is too high."  The surgeon pulled down his mask and we spent the next 15 minutes composing ourselves. 

Fast forward six years.  During a routine cleaning, I asked the dentist about a small chip on my front tooth.  Hardly noticeable, but it catches on my lip.  So today when he asked if I considered closing the gap -- because of a chipped front tooth -- I rolled my eyes.  I told him the story, succinctly: Surgery, braces, a metal bar, not being able to floss.  He suggested resin composite veneers. 

"You mean Bondo." 


He laughed.  "Yes.  No.  Yes.  It's like this."  The tooth is chipped because my bite is changing, the front tooth hits the bottom tooth, and the gap is spreading.  It happens as we age.  Oy.  Braces would bring the teeth together and make the front teeth look too big.  By fixing the chip, at the same time the resin can be used to narrow the gap.  Treatment plan.  Done.  And it's covered by insurance.  The appointment is Oct. 19.