When I was 16 I just kind of fell into the web. No, not some giant spider web, but that great world wide one that people keep blathering on about. It was the good ole dot com days, where anyone who knew what a <p> tag was could get hired. I’d always been a bit of a computer geek, it was a source of endless fascination with me and I remember many a childhood hour whiled away typing in DOS commands or other mindless pursuits. But I never really planned on being a professional geek.

By the time I was 18 I was already on the path to a career and a jagged hop through an assortment of gray cubicals, large corporations, small companies and everything in between. I’ve been a designer, a developer, a webmaster and a code monkey (not my official title, but really, it should have been). It’s been a dozen years and until recently I never really stopped to think, is this what I want? It just was what it was. The bills were paid; some days my mind overflowed with excitement and ideas, and other days my feet had trouble moving I was so numb from the drudgery. It was work, basically. It wasn’t until a few years ago when I really sat down and thought about what I wanted to be when I grew up and even that didn’t go further than a constantly changing idea of “what could be” and an unused bachelor’s degree achieved while still working the same sort of jobs.

When I was a kid computers were always there (despite it being the early 80s), but they weren’t my overriding passion. From the time I was 6 I wanted to be a doctor (before that I wanted to be an actress/singer, I’d still take that job, if only for the paycheck). First a pediatric cardiologist (try asking most 6 year olds to pronounce that much less explain it!), then later a research biologist (but still a medical doctor) once someone introduced me to medical laboratories and let me play for a couple of days with centrifuges and other assorted equipment. The mysteries of the universe opened up before me, it was thrilling.

Now though, now I don’t know. I’m rushing towards 30 and I still don’t truly know what I want to be when I grow up. I can keep following the path I’m on and will likely continue to grow and enjoy my career or I can put on the breaks and completely change paths now, while I’m still young enough that I’m not that set in my ways.

So how about you? Are you doing what you’ve always wanted to do? Or did you fall into something that you really enjoy, but wasn’t an overriding passion or an intentional decision? What would you do if someone handed you 4-8 years worth of living expenses and said “go to school and study your heart’s passion, you just have to come out of it with a paying job and support yourself after”? What would you study?

Me, well I still don’t know. I know I’d miss what I’m doing now, it has become a passion. Maybe not my first passion, though. When do you give up on the what-ifs and what-could-have-been kind of thoughts? Is it when you finally grow up?

If you’d asked me a few weeks ago what the word wax meant to me I probably would have said something about making my car shiny and protecting the paint. Now though, now I could ramble off an ode to wax. I could give you a 1,000 page essay comparing and contrasting the properties of standard dental wax and silicone wax. I could rant and rave about the percentage of my day that’s now spent putting on and taking off wax. It’s my friend, my blessing and my tormentor. I wonder if it’s an addiction, if I could stop putting it on, would I adjust to the agony of braces faster? Or is the application of it all that’s keeping me from pulling out the pliers and ripping these things off myself?

To those contemplating getting braces, really they aren’t that bad. I’m sure it’ll be worth it in the end. It’s not some delusion forced upon me by the orthodontic industry. I think. I hope.

Oh, and silicone wax is far better than standard wax, but it takes 3 times as long to put on, so get both.

It’s now day 5 of anywhere between 540 and 730 days in braces, a tiny step along the path of a pretty epic journey. Most of the people I’ve spoken to, though, say that these are the hardest days. These are the days most fraught with discomfort, paranoia (“was that wax coming off or a bracket? aaahhhh“) and just general thoughts of “why the heck am I doing this?!” I hope so. I hope it all gets better from here on in.

I have learned a few things along the way, though, that I hope might be of some use to others thinking about making the same choices I did.

First, lingual braces are actually quite comfortable. Maybe it’s because I had a tongue piercing once upon a time and I already had to go through that whole learning to talk around an injured tongue and dealing with discomfort thing, but really, they aren’t so bad. My speech is most certainly affected, but I have no doubts that given time and practice I’ll get rid of my annoying lisp.

Second, ceramic braces are not comfortable. I’m already regretting cheaping out and getting the linguals only on the top. After all the horror stories of discomfort and speech issues I decided that more standard braces on the bottom made sense. No one is going to see them anyway so why spend more for the fancy gold ones. The ceramic ones are more comfortable than the regular metal ones (my back molars have regular metal), but they’re still extremely discomforting. I’m feel as though my lip has had an altercation with a weed whacker.

Third, the area where the ceramics really shine is in hygiene. If you think flossing is bad normally, try doing it with threader floss while trying to open your mouth wide and look in the mirror so you can see what you’re doing. At least with the ceramics there are no jaw contortions needed, linguals, not so much. For that reason alone the extreme discomfort of the ceramics is worth it.

Fourth, wax is my friend in terms of comfort, but oh the hours I’ve already spent putting it on, taking it off, putting it on, taking it off, so on and so forth. Wax on, wax off, I feel like I’m in a classically campy 80s movie, just without the martial arts skills.

Fifth, when they say “You’ll start to see movement soon.” they really do mean soon. I thought with 6 weeks to go before my first adjustment, soon meant 2-3 weeks, not 36 hours. Feeling as your front two teeth begin to slowly move out of alignment is freaky. It’s like living in one of my worst nightmares. I’m sure it’ll only get worse from here on in, though. To anyone just getting started, just be prepared, soon comes sooner than you think!

Sixth, you can eat an astounding number of foods without chewing.

That’s it for now. I have every intention of posting pictures at some point, if only because some people (such as my little brother) are demanding them. I’m planning on posting updates at least every few weeks or once every adjustment, if only to chronicle things for my own memories, I might move them to a separate section of the site though. I know when I was doing my regular obsessive over-researching while making the decision about what types of braces to get, I enjoyed reading people’s experiences. So maybe someone out there will glean useful some information from mine.

Today I got the sad news that one of my last remaining piercings was going to have to come out. Of course I could let it heal and re-pierce it. But, could I actually do that? Getting random bits of your body stuck with a needle all in the name of “it looks/feels cool” when you’re in your late teens or early 20s is one thing, when you’re rapidly approaching 30 it’s another thing entirely. All I could think was “I think I’m a bit too old for that” and then “but why?”

I’m not really that different than I was at 21 when I got said hole added to my body. Sure, I’m a few pounds heavier and I live in the suburbs now, but I still delight in dying my hair random colors. Halloween is still my favorite holiday. I don’t know how mature and responsible you can really call me. When did I hit that sudden barrier where it seems a waste of time and money to get a piercing? When did I get that old? Will the hair color be next? Will I give up metal and alternative rock for easy listening?

It’s probably just personality and pain tolerance shifting with time. But I’m feeling like an fuddy-duddy right now.