The Fear of Enternity, The Agony of Reality I had a dream last night that I ran into a friend whom I haven't seen since high school. Being 32, high school was 14 years ago. When last I saw her, she still had her braces on and in my dream, they were still on....14 years later. And not only was she still wearing them, her teeth had gotten worse...like twisted and turned and filed down to creepy spikes worse. Despite all that, she greeted me optimistically like she always did in real life and we shared an "I can't believe I'm an adult with braces" moment and then I asked her how much longer she had to wear her braces and she said another year and a half. She asked me the same question and I guiltily told her "just eight more months." I felt so bad! I got braces for mostly vainity's sake and I was feeling depressed about my eight months and here she was, 14 years later with one more year to go and still optimistic that her Orthodontist was doing an excellent job! I'm pretty sure this dream was inspired by the fact that every one that sees my braces for the first time either wants to get them, or had horrible experiences with them as a teenager. Some had to wear them for four years. Many had to use cranks that they cranked themselves to break their palatte and widen their mouths so their teeth could fit. It's all so torturous. It's been three days shy of one month....only 7-9 more to go. I can't tell you how many times in the past week I've been entirely fed up with these things. Now instead of creating scratches, they are catching on the callouses they made on my cheeks. And forget about saliva control. Especially while performing shakespeare. The show is going well though, and in all the production photos I've seen, you can't even tell I have braces :) And yes, my teeth are definitely straightening out. The obnoxious overlapping teeth are almost to the point where the don't get in the way of the other teeth above them. Slowly but surely......