Last week, not quite four months to the day before my forty-first birthday, I got braces. Just a glance at my teeth and the reason why I need braces wouldn’t be obvious. Even a closer look, one that showed you the slight clipping of my right front tooth behind my left front tooth, what dentists in the U.S. call number 8 and number 9, and it still wouldn’t be obvious why I’m spending an obscene amount of money and volunteering for a year or more of periodic dental pain. Nor would it be obvious why I’m happy to be able to do those things.
Ten years ago today I took a header down a set of concrete stairs. Since no one actually saw me do it and I still can’t remember a thing about the incident, I have only speculation to rely upon. Speculation says that I tripped somehow, took the wrought iron railing across my upper teeth and immediately blacked out from the pain, went limp and slid down the concrete steps on my face.
The perfect dentition I’d been born with, the perfect dentition that I’d managed to protect through 18 years of fast pitch softball, ruined in less than a minute. And yet, I’d still say that I’m lucky.
The orthodontia I had to have after the accident wasn’t fun, or complete obviously. Relearning how to chew and eating everything with a knife and fork for upwards of a year wasn’t the best experience I could ever have hoped to have. Not feeling comfortable enough with my mouth to eat an apple like a normal person for over three years was also not how I would have chosen to spend my time. Yet, I wouldn’t trade those experiences in for anything. Why?
Quite simply: I am lucky to be alive.
The emergency room doctor who treated me expressed astonishment that I hadn’t broken my nose and in the same breath told me how lucky I was that I hadn’t snapped my neck either. An amazing, awesome number of possibilities, ranging from full body paralysis to death, await you if you break your neck in just the wrong place. Yet, I managed to walk, albeit slowly, up those same stairs later that day and sit down on my couch.
Tens years later and despite life’s daily frustrations, despite the non-profit management follies that often fill me up to my back teeth with frustration and suppressed rage, despite my natural bent to see the dark cloud around the sliver lining, I relish every single minute I’ve had in the past 10 years and I’m thankful for every one I may have in the future.
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