Transformation Tuesday: Story of a Smile

Normally, I start Tuesday with a Coffee Tuesday update. Don’t worry, that’s still coming, but I thought I’d share a realization I had during my recent work trip to Colorado.

Usually, on the first day of a long trip, I’ll head to a place like Whole Foods and stock up on healthy snacks for the week. For the first time in a long time, I purchased a bunch of apples for the week (one for each day). You might think this is insignificant, but quite the contrary; this is a huge deal.

Apples are one of my favorite pieces of fruit (honey crisp are my ultimate favorite). Like, this goes way back. In eighth grade, when we had to draft and prepare ‘the ultimate’ defense argument in debate club, I argued that apples should be the national fruit (I ridiculously still have this speech, since it earned me top honors, if you ever feel the need to hear the cold, hard, crisp facts).

The day I got braces, I ate an apple on the way to the appointment (photo proof). I knew it would be a LONG time before I could bite into an apple without the fear of breaking my braces (I’d like to note here that I’ve indeed seen people eat apples with braces. Whatever. Good for them.).  There’s something so satisfying about sinking your teeth into a crisp, sweet apple. I love it.

While driving to school visits each day (oh my, so much driving in Colorado), I would reach into my snack bag and grab an apple. I took it for granted the first couple of times, and the third or fourth time, it hit me: I was enjoying biting into an apple! I only just got my braces off a few short months ago, but it feels like forever.

I never really wrote about getting my braces off — but man, it’s been pretty life-changing. I smile so much more now and I actually love the way my smile looks. We had our one year anniversary wedding photos taken a couple of weeks ago, and I was so excited to show off my radiant braces-free smile!

I really had to reach into the vault to even FIND a before braces photo. I’m not kidding when I said I would never smile. Or, if I did smile for photos, it would be a half-assed, closed-mouth kinda thing.

But, here it is (this is painfully hard for me to share):

Whoa, Nelly. It’s SUCH a confidence boost to have a beautiful smile. I have zero fears talking to new people (really that started when the braces came on, even that was an improvement from what I had), and I smile SO much now with no hesitation.

I think I looked cute with braces – I smiled ALL the time with them. The one thing I didn’t like about wearing braces was eating food in front of people (other than Johnny). I felt gross and stuff always gets stuck, it doesn’t matter what you eat.

I am 100% glad that I went through this journey – pain and all. I had 5 teeth removed, 1 year of a retainer, and almost 3 full years of braces to get to this lovely new smile. I don’t regret one minute of it (now). Even as an adult (30 years old here), I’m glad I went through this journey.