Sad

We've had a wonderful summer. Really. The weather has been beautiful, the pool has been delightful, the food has been good.

Laura went to Disney World for a full week. Jon went to two camps. DJ did a job shadowing program at the hospital and earned a fair bit of money playing his saxophone around town. Shannon had a stable job and good income over the summer--a true blessing for a college student. And we had a great family vacation to Texas.

But today we had a disappointment. Funny how one unexpected punch to your gut can seemingly wipe out the happy effects of a whole summer. It was a major disappointment for one of the kids--a life-altering one, to be fair, although one tries not to think about it that way. God is in control, and if a life has been altered, a door closed slightly, it is in His divine hands.

I wish I were not teaching Job this fall. I do not feel up for this. I don't feel strong enough to learn first hand the things I am going to have to teach.

I feel so bad for my child. I should be strong, positive, stiff-upper-lip and put-on-a-happy-face and all that. But I stink at self-control. Try as I might, I keep crying... about everything, because nobody is yet ready to talk about what has happened, and I am not going to be the one to bring it up prematurely. I may not be able to control the way sadness lurches up my throat and spills out my eyes, but at least I can control what I talk about.

In a way it is not such a big deal, but then again in another way it is huge. I pray for wisdom in what I will say when the time comes--not to make a mountain out of a molehill, but also not to belittle an event that will undoubtedly have an effect on the next step in someone's life.

In the meantime, there are things to be celebrated. It is Jonno's thirteenth birthday today. I am making a three-layer chocolate mocha cake with chocolate-mocha-cream cheese frosting, and so far so good. I will wrap his presents. I will wash my face and smile, and it will be OK.

God is in control. Psalm 57:2--"I cry out to God Most High, to God, who fulfills His purpose for me..." (and my children).

I'm not dead yet

I am still alive, though very tired.

I love seeing new places and visiting relatives. However, airplane flight is hard on my fibromyalgia--even before the plane takes off, as it is pressurizing, I start to ache like a crazy woman, and the more I fight the urge to writhe and thrash around, the more I hurt.

Since all our flights had connections, I took off and landed eight times this month. That is enough flying for me for a LONG time.

Texas was interesting and hot. I will write about it tomorrow. Yeah, right. I will try to write about it at some point before I forget. The best part was eating Mexican food at Mi Tierra in San Antonio, under a true plethora of pinatas, served by a waitress who only spoke Spanish. The worst part was being stung by a jellyfish on my ankle, but the repulsive changing rooms at Schlitterbaun Water Park were a close second to bottom.

The company retreat was a blast, and we did lots of fun things. It was the best retreat yet, and we had a great room, a great view, great food, and great activities. The only drawback was the wedding that was there simultaneously with us and crowded us out of the pool at one point. But it was fun to watch their festivities from afar. The wild reception, surprisingly, was out of hearing range when we went to bed that night.

The main lodge building had a great wide-screen TV where outrageous community viewing of the Olympics could be done. Our company even bonded with a group from RIT (techie college students) over Michael Phelps races.

The trip to Minnesota to visit my parents was necessarily quiet because I was exhausted and my mom and dad are getting elderly and set in their ways. I just wanted to sleep and recover from my other trips, but I felt guilty because my mom was so nervous about preparing meals. I would have done the meals myself, but my mom is kind of OCD and needs everything done exactly a certain way, and it is rather difficult to help her without frustrating her. So I tried to help without getting in the way sometimes, and gave up and got out of the way other times. I spent one day just reading and resting all day--I read three chapters of The Pickwick Papers and took three naps in between. That felt SO GOOD.

I did not get the job teaching English, which, it turns out, is definitely for the best. I can only imagine the meltdown I would have had if I were just now getting home, only to try to do a year's worth of lesson plans to teach literature I have mostly forgotten, all in the next week before school starts. (And who would hire someone who writes sentences like that last one, anyway? Could I really even BE an English teacher???) I may have not gotten the job because I was not qualified, or because I was not around to be interviewed, or because the other applicant just plain came across better. At any rate, it is God's will, and I am happy to know that it is--I didn't even have to make a decision, so I received all the clarity that I had prayed for.

Wow

I haven't written in a very long time.

So much has happened.

Jon went to camp and came home with a girlfriend. I think girlfriends are not too bad if they are long-distance. We never had to have rules about this sort of thing before, so this caught us off-guard. We may need to do some careful thinking and come up with some rules.

There was VBS. I had the honor and privilege of teaching the Bible study portion of the meeting we had for the mothers of VBS children. It was a precious time and I met some delightful people. One of our pastor's wives led us through a craft--we painted boards with Bible verses, and they came out beautifully.

Jon is at camp again; this is the camp he went to last year and loved very much. I hope he has a great time and is challenged in his faith.

David is making a surprising amount of money playing his saxophone this summer. I don't feel so bad that he didn't have a summer job.

I may get a job teaching English at a local private Christian school. Actually, it would be teaching English and Bible, which is basically my dream job. Plus I could take Jonathan with me, and he would get free tuition.

The way I've seen God working in this is downright scary. It's my dream job, and the answer to many of my prayers. At the same time, it is truly frightening. I don't have a degree in education. I have taught lots of Sunday school, Bible studies and VBS, but never every day of the week, long-term. One week of VBS usually nearly kills me. How could I survive the schedule of teaching through a full school year?

I am a little bit scared of teenagers. Less than I used to be when I WAS a teenager, it's true. I love my kids, and they have some wonderful friends. But teenagers, in general, are a somewhat intimidating to me. To be honest, all the kids I know are great; maybe it is the other teachers that scare me. At this school, the other two teachers in the English department are in their mid-twenties, nearly twenty years younger than I am. And yet I am the one with no experience. That's scary.

I like shopping at off hours--getting groceries in the early afternoon on Tuesdays, never Christmas shopping on the weekends, that sort of thing. I won't be able to do that anymore if I get a job.

If I get a job, how will I handle dentist, doctor and orthodontist appointments? It has been complicated enough trying to get the kids out of school for appointments. With a job, I would also have to figure out how I could get myself out of work to pick them up. And what about my own appointments?

If I get a job I will have to do my hair, wear a small amount of make-up and buy a whole wardrobe of presentable clothes... not just three or four decent outfits to wear to church and on special occasions.

If I get a job, my systems for cleaning, laundry and meal planning will have to change radically.

If I get a job, the dogs will be home alone a lot--other people will have to kick in and take more ownership in feeding them and letting them out.

HOW will I do DJ's graduation party next summer if I am teaching???

The pros?

I would get to do what I originally wanted to do (teach English) and what I have recently developed a love for (teaching Bible).

It might be really good for Jonathan; it might be where God wants him.

I would have a reason to get up early in the morning, which might help me shift to a better time clock for my body.

I would have more opportunities to be with people and to make friends.

I might get to have a lasting, positive, godly influence on young minds. This amazes, excites and frightens me, all at the same time.

I would have an opportunity to make a small financial contribution to our family. Unless I lose it all to taxes, which might be the case. I hope I would make enough money to cover the increased cost of living (gas, clothes, convenience foods, etc) that would result from my having a job.

Whatever the Lord wills, that is what I need to do. I need to not let laziness and fear influence my decision.

I pray that God will show me clearly what He wants me to do. If they don't offer me the job, that will make it easy. If they do offer the job, I pray for a clear sign of direction.

Suffering?

I am trying to figure out what I am supposed to teach for the Bible study this coming fall.

Or if I am supposed to teach a Bible study at all.

Or if I should go back to college and get a teaching degree.

Shawn mentioned to me while we were are Lake Placid that he thought I should go back to school. I am not sure how he meant it. I was sharing with him that lately I feel stupid and left behind in life. I think about my friends who became doctors, surgeons, researchers, professional people who travel and have a professional jargon and know how to rent cars and turn on their own televisions. I guess maybe I'm having a mid-life crisis, looking at all the things I didn't do and have not become. Anyway, Shawn said that he thought I should go back to school.

I need to talk to him about that, because we are supposed to do what our husbands tell us to do. I need to find out exactly what he meant when he said that.

If I go back to school, I will have to give up teaching the Bible study, and that has become one of my greatest joys in life... to go every Tuesday morning and find this wonderful roomful of beautiful women who want to learn about Jesus. They are there before I am, many of them, like a miracle. They bring delicious breakfast foods--fruits and breads and baked egg dishes--and one or two of them set a beautiful table with flowers to serve from. They mingle and chat and have breakfast while I get my materials in order, and then we pray, and dive into the Word of God for over an hour. We finish by praying more--they share their requests with me and I have the privilege of lifting them up in prayer.

It is a time when I feel the presence of God and the love of the saints. It is the high point of the week. It gives me a reason to study during the week, a reason to depend on God and cling to Him each day so that I will be able to bring them something from His table.

It has been a relatively painless way for me to grow spiritually. And we all know that most spiritual growth happens in times of suffering and trial, so it has been a bountiful, abundant blessing.

I have never made any money. I have made less than $20,000 in my entire life. I have contributed nil to my family's financial situation, unless you count that I do my own housework and serve homemade meals most of the time instead of getting take-out or fast-food.

The things I love to do, I do not want to do for money. I want to study and teach about Jesus. I want to pursue Truth and Wisdom.

I would not mind teaching high school students to think. I would not mind teaching literature and asking different questions from the ones the students are usually asked. It would be exciting to open young minds to thoughts they have never had, to ideas they have never pondered, to point them, even in a secular American public school, to the idea that there might be a God and that He might be worth seeking.

But going to college costs money. I have a child in college. After next year, I will have two children in college, and the year after that, three. If the Lord wants me to go to college, I hope and pray that He will make it very clear and provide a view of the path for financing it so that I can know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I am following His plan.

Teaching the Bible study doesn't cost money. It pays in rich spiritual blessings, and I love doing it. I will have to give it up if I go to college.

Right now I do not know what I would teach in the Bible study. Last fall we did the book of Matthew, and from January to June we did 1 & 2 Kings. I was thinking we would do 1 & 2 Peter this coming fall, but as I tried to get a start on it, it wasn't coming together.

Then I started to have the idea that perhaps I am supposed to teach on Job. Suffering. There is so much pain in the world, in people's lives. And Christians can easily get thrown by pain when they have a mistaken idea that belonging to Jesus means they receive automatic protection from pain.

This morning I did my Bible reading, which included Job 3-7. Afterwards, I went online to listen to Colin Smith, my current favorite Bible teacher. Strangely, the message was untitled, which is unusual. But as Pastor Colin started to preach, he was in the beginning of Job, referencing verses I had read yesterday and this morning. I wondered if this was a hint from God that I was on the right track in thinking He wants me to teach Job instead of 1 Peter. Then Pastor Colin referenced some verses from 1 Peter about suffering.

Maybe I am supposed to teach about suffering.

I need to keep praying about this. I am scared of teaching the book of Job, because I don't understand all of it very well. I know that there are places where Job's friends say true things, and also places where they say things that are not right, things that made God angry (we know this because of what God said to them in Job 42:7). I do not feel confident in my ability to discern where they are speaking truth and where they are wrong. I am afraid to try to teach this book.

So should I just go to college and become an English teacher?

What is God's purpose for my life?

Anniversary getaway

Well, June is over and July is here already.

I think I missed the summer solstice. I am quite disappointed. I love to celebrate the light of the longest day of the year.

Shawn and I went on a little trip to Lake Placid in the Adirondacks, to celebrate our 21st anniversary. Last year our anniversary was eclipsed by Shannon's graduation, and next year it will be by David's, and the next year by Laura's. When we got married back in 1987 in Minnesota, I never imagined that our anniversary would end up conflicting with our children's high school graduations. In Minnesota, people are done with school and on to much better and brighter things by June 27.

It rained on us in Lake Placid. Generally, it always rains whenever we go anywhere. Being introverts and not enjoying crowds, we have learned to look on the bright side and make the best of it. Rain reduces a crowd quite drastically. As long as it doesn't rain too hard, and the rides are still running, you can do very well at an amusement park on a rainy day... the lines are usually very short.

However, we had been hoping to hike. It is not so much fun to hike in the rain. Especially in the Adirondacks. The Adirondack trails are primitive and rocky. Sometimes you can hardly tell where the trail goes. When the rain cleared on Saturday afternoon, we set out on a modest hike--2.5 miles didn't sound so bad.

Let me just say, there are 2.5 miles in a neighborhood, or at a nature preserve with mulched paths, or at a state park where they build the trails like a sidewalk through the gorge, stone steps and all. And then there are 2.5 miles of rough, steeply inclined Adirondack "trails" through rocky forest with nary a level inch on which to place your foot. Take one of those, and then make it really, really wet, so that where it might have been almost level at one time, what you have is a bog of sticky mud through which you have to skip from stone (slippery when wet) to stone if you want to keep your white sneakers white. Which you won't be able to do. And when you are up on the rocks, out of the mud, you might think it would get better, but again, the rocks are slippery when wet.

We got some strenuous exercise for about an hour and a half, but we didn't get near the summit. I pooped out and told Shawn I thought we'd better head home. He, gentleman that he is, agreed kindly. About 5 minutes after we turned around, it started to lightening and thunder and then rain, so I didn't feel quite so bad about my big wimp-out.

We enjoyed the canoes at the place where we stayed on Lake Placid. For those who may not know, the Town of Lake Placid is not built on Lake Placid. It is built on Mirror Lake. We stayed on Lake Placid, which some say is less pretty, but I like it better--it's less crowded.

We also had two nice dinners out, the prices of which were ridiculous, because a lot of filthy rich people frequent Lake Placid, and also New York City people and wealthy Europeans. I am trying not to worry about how much we spent on those two dinners. I had fish both times, because it is soft and I can chew it, even though my teeth are loose and sore in my braces. The second place we ate was really gorgeous, with huge cathedral windows overlooking a mountain and a trout brook. They played cascading piano music to match the running water in the brook, and the food was fancy, though not as good as the prices should have warranted. We got better service at the Bob Evans where we ate lunch in Watertown on our way home. Shawn thinks it's because we didn't order wine with our dinner. It was definitely a wine-with-dinner kind of place, but honestly, should we be discriminated against because we don't drink? Anyhow, we probably won't go there again. Not that we're in the neighborhood all that often.

A weekend away is tricky, because you don't have all that much time to unwind. And by the time you start unwinding, it is time to go home. We did have a lovely canoe ride after we had checked out of our cottage. We were supposed to keep the canoe in the bay where the dock was, but Shawn isn't so much for following those kinds of rules, so we went out into the bigger part of Lake Placid and saw Whiteface Mountain shrouded in mysterious clouds and wondered who lived in the amazing mansions with boathouses with "garages" for up to five boats.

I think, when you are a mother, you never quite relax when you "get away" from your kids. You are always wondering how they are doing, and if they are safe, happy and healthy. Their phone calls are like iced lemonade on a hot, dry day.

It was a nice weekend. It was also good to get home.

The very best thing--the kids cleaned the house while we were gone! I came home, and they had even dusted and vacuumed our room! Never have vacuum tracks been so exciting! (Sorry about all the exclamation points, but I really mean them.)

Dysfunctionality

While going through my old MSWord files this afternoon, I came across an essay I started about nine years ago, and I decided to try to finish it up and "publish" it here.

"Dysfunctionality" is such a buzzword these days, it surprises me that conservatives have not capitalized on it in the war on abortion. Well, maybe not, since so-called conservatives no longer seem to take a stand on abortion. But for the grassroots conservatives who do...

While the battle rages on, abortion is compared to murder and aborted babies are compared to slaves before civil rights came to pass. From the conservative point of view, this is well and good and logical. But it is an approach that continually fails to have any effect whatsoever on the right-to-choose psyche. It seems that it might be time to attempt a new approach and a new terminology.

Abortion is a symptom of a sexually dysfunctional society. The problem is an unrestrained and overindulgent national appetite for sex. But how can this be proven to people whose belief system approves of sex at any time, for any reason and in any way?

Perhaps we can try by comparing the basic drive for sex to the basic drive for food. People have a natural inner drive to eat. We have to eat, or we would die. However, it does not follow that eating everything we might like to eat (and doing so more often than a few times a day) is good for us. We know that we must put limits on our eating in order to remain healthy. Therefore, the United States government has gone so far as to create lists and guidelines to try to help people make healthy eating decisions: Eat more fruit and vegetables, lots of whole grains and a proper amount of lean meat. Limit fats, sugars and refined white flour. Do not over-indulge in huge portions. Drink a lot of water, an appropriate amount of milk and limit sodas and sugary juices. We all know these things. It is simple math, really. People know what they should do: if they do it, they are healthy but if they struggle to control their drive for food, they tend to get fat.

It isn’t so different with sex, except that nobody in the secular world seems to face the fact that there are guidelines that can govern our sexuality and keep us healthy. Guidelines for “safe sex” according to the Powers That Be (whomever they are—but they seem to have a real foothold in the public schools, libraries and clinics) consist of merely one rule, “Wear a condom.” Well, that’s kind of like saying, “Use Nutra-sweet instead of sugar.” It could be of mild benefit in some cases, but mostly it leads to a false sense of security, and in some ways it can cause more problems than it solves.

I’m not going to get into one of my anti-aspartame tirades right now, because that is a topic for a whole different day. Let me just say that the diet product industry is akin to the birth control industry. It’s all about trying to abet people in believing that they can have their pleasure for free—enjoy their indulgences with no cost. It leads to a twisted perspective on the meaning of eating and the meaning of sex. The pleasurable acts are taken as something separate from the function that they are intended to perform—the continuation of life, whether individually by nourishment or socially by procreation. God never intended for these things to be separated in this way. In His mercy, He made the acts pleasurable so that we would be motivated to continue life, but they were given to us for a purpose, a purpose that we often want to limit and escape.

Just as we need to eat or we will die, so we need to procreate, or humanity will die out. However, we can easily see that too much eating is ultimately unhealthy, and the parallel holds true for too much sex. Too much sex is disastrous for society. Too much unbridled sex leads to ghettos full of unwed mothers and illegitimate children, which leads to poverty which leads to crime and substance abuse. Um, bingo. The downfall of American society as we see it today. But nobody wants to admit it. Freedom of sexual expression has practically been written into the Bill of Rights. Sexual disorder? The only sexual disorder people seem willing to acknowledge is the inability to perform a sexual act. This is a frighteningly inaccurate way to view the issue.

Although deviant sexual behavior is rarely identified, it is generally agreed that there are such things as eating disorders. One of the most famous of these is Bulimia, where an individual, usually a young girl, binges on vast quantities of food and then proceeds to plunge her fingers down her throat and regurgitate the vile contents of her stomach. This is her way of purging her body and escaping the consequences of her previously overindulged appetite. There is a direct and obvious parallel to abortion here. When the sexual urge is overindulged in inappropriate ways, an unwanted pregnancy often occurs. To escape the consequences of this unwanted pregnancy, a girl (woman if you will) has an abortion, purging her body of the byproduct of her sexually promiscuous behavior.

Nearly everyone agrees that Bulimia constitutes dysfunctional behavior. Indeed, psychologists and psychiatrists are hired and paid handsomely to treat it. Its detrimental effects are widely publicized to young women. Health classes in public schools repeatedly warn young people about the dangers of eating disorders. Who hasn't heard that Bulimia can burn out one's esophagus and rot one's teeth? No credible health practitioner would ever prescribe Bulimia as a method for treating obesity. However, doctors in professional settings routinely perform abortions to treat the consequences of overly sexualized behavior, while minimizing the health risks. This seems illogical, since hemorrhaging, infertility, and breast cancer would seem to be greater threats to one's long term well being than rotten teeth and esophageal ulcers.

Rather than identifying abortion as an unhealthy escape from the consequences of dysfunctional behavior, “education” systems present it as a viable option for dealing with an unwanted pregnancy. The root of the problem stems from the rampant acceptance that our society at large holds for dysfunctional sexual indulgence. Young people are actually encouraged to do such things as, “Discover your sexual orientation,” and, “Express your sexuality.” From movies and television programs to commercials that people don’t even make a conscious decision to watch, pervasive bumping, grinding, groaning, back-arching, panting and disrobing combine to convince the empty-minded public that orgasm is the ultimate raison-d’être, and that You have both the right and the responsibility to obtain as much of it as possible.

So while the high school health teachers hand out photocopies of the FDA approved dietary standards and encourage young people with eating problems to seek help immediately, they lay out no real standards for healthy sexuality. This is incomprehensible when you realize that they do teach about AIDS, herpes and the plethora of other sexually transmitted diseases. Healthy sex should be recommended to take place between two people, preferably both over 18 years of age, only within the context of a heterosexual, single-partner, committed relationship (marriage), always with the understanding that sex is connected to procreation and should not take place outside of a loving family environment. These recommendations are based on what science shows us is healthy for our bodies.

We must somehow find a way to educate the public that abortion is a dysfunctional response to a dysfunctional sexual behavior. Women who have abortions need therapy, not "choice." (And doctors who perform abortions should lose their licenses to practice—whatever happened to “First do no harm…”?)

Vanity, pride, guilt and fear

I haven’t posted in a long time. This is not because I have nothing to write. It is because I have a lot going on.

For one thing, and I’m just going to put it out there: I got braces.

If that doesn’t feel like the most vain, self-centered, selfish use of family resources, I don’t know what is. And I do not say this to be disrespectful of other adults with braces. I know some absolutely lovely people who have braces. That’s why I had the courage to go through with it at all. I could think, “Well, she’s a really nice, loving, giving person, and she has braces, so maybe it wouldn’t be a mortal sin for me to get them, too.”

When the braces cause me pain, I can’t help feeling that it is penance that I am required to serve for my vanity.

I have bad gum recession and extremely sensitive teeth where some of their necks are completely exposed. This causes additional pain with the braces—especially when I am trying to dislodge food that has become stuck in the braces. More penance. And I have an additional fear that when all is said and done, my newly straightened teeth will all fall out and I will have to get dentures anyway.

So on top of the regular pain of braces, I have the “through the roof” pain of my sensitive exposed tooth roots, and loads of guilt and fear.

It was an experience having these braces put on.

I went in to the orthodontist’s office wondering if I really wanted to do this. The technician greeted me and said, “How are you today?” Suddenly, I felt tears welling up behind my eyes and a choking lump in my throat. “I’m kind of nervous,” I whispered, willing myself not to cry. Forty-two year olds don’t cry in orthodontist offices before anything has even happened. “You look kind of nervous,” the technician told me. I guess it’s hard not to look nervous when it’s taking all your powers of concentration to hold back a flood of humiliating tears. The orthodontist came over and the technician said to him, “This is Ruth. She’s a little nervous.”

“Well,” said Dr. Smith, “Ruth has had braces before, so maybe she knows what she’s in for.”

I’m thinking, Don’t remind me. Don’t make me think about this. Should I bolt? What would happen if I bolted? Could I get any of my money back?

Anyway, I laid down in the chair and they inserted numerous plastic frameworks into my mouth to hold it open, hold my lips back, hold my teeth apart. After they had everything jimmied open, wider than I thought my lips could even stretch, they took some more plastic, this attached to rubber bands, and used it like a sling to hold my tongue back. “Don’t worry,” said the technician as her sling crammed my tongue into the back of my throat, “Just breathe through your nose.”

I deserve this, I thought. I deserve this for being vain. The corners of many plastic apparatuses poked me in the gums, in the insides of my cheeks, in the end of my tongue. I certainly couldn’t talk, and I could barely breathe. It’s cottonwood season, and my allergies are under control only as long as I can supplement breathing through my mouth.

Then began the process. I looked out the window at the leaves of a birch tree and the light sky behind them. I tried to travel far away in my mind. But my lower face was assaulted by tubes, fans, solutions, things that gurgled and things that beeped. Something was sucking the saliva out of my mouth while something else was painted on my teeth. At one point, she rinsed each tooth individually with a blast of icy cold water. That about sent me to the moon when she came to the sensitive ones. When my body started arching out of the chair, she said, “Oh, did that hurt a little bit?” I closed my eyes and prayed, wondering if God would hear me if He was displeased because of what I was doing.

She put a pair of tinted glasses on me and one on herself and used some sort of laser light to do something. The heat of the laser light was wretched against the sensitive teeth, too. I wondered, What am I doing? How am I ever going to stand this for two years? How much is it going to hurt when they chisel these things off again? What if I die before I get them off? She handed me a piece of amber plastic on a stick, sort of like a mirror or a fan, and told me to hold it over my mouth. I had to hold it there for an eternity, and I have no idea why.

In the end I survived. Eating is no longer any fun At all. Milkshakes don’t even taste good after awhile. I eat breakfast and dinner and try to survive on liquids for lunch. Last night I found some forgotten avocados in the crisper drawer of my refrigerator and I made them into guacamole. I tried to eat some on a chip, but quickly decided that it was much better eaten off a fork.

My SWEET, LOVING, KIND, GENEROUS husband purchased me a Water-Pik for cleaning my teeth. This after I found that to brush and floss left me with a stiff neck, a flushed face, pulsing gums and throbbing teeth. Every time I brushed and flossed, I ended up needing to take some painkillers and lie down.

Now I have a tooth cleaning routine that takes forever but doesn’t hurt too much:

1. Rinse with Listerine to dissolve as much stuff as possible (like plaque). Listerine really does make your teeth feel smooth.
   
2. Brush the brackets and the tips of my teeth with a baking soda toothpaste.
   
3. Clean my gumline and between my teeth with the Water Pik (and I put a solution of hydrogen peroxide in it).
   
4. Rinse with Biotene, a mouthwash that is designed to restore an optimum balance to your saliva to help prevent plaque buildup and any other tooth or gum disease.
   

Little by little I am getting used to this. I still get palpitations when I have to see someone for the first time since it all started and explain why I have braces.

Make that, explain that I have braces.

Because why do I have braces? Why do I? I barely ever wear makeup and I do not color my hair. I hate shopping, and I rarely update my wardrobe. I rarely dress up. So why do I feel the need to fix my teeth?

Part of it is probably guilt because they are crooked and my parents had paid to fix them when I was a teenager (and they really, really needed it then). Nobody at that time told me I should wear my retainer forever, the way they tell kids now. But I did wear it fairly often until 1995 when we moved and I lost it.

In thirteen years, my teeth shifted drastically, and they were continuing to shift. I could feel them shifting, the itchy, achy feeling in my gums.

The worst thing was my upper-front-right tooth, which was shifting out. By itself. If both my front teeth had been shifting out together, that might have been one thing, but one front tooth shifting out in front of all my other front teeth, angling out to the right as it went (even if it had been angling in toward the middle I might have been able to stand it). When I noticed that it even left a bump on the right side of my mouth when my lips were pulled over it, I became ultra self-conscious. And as I lay in bed and felt the teeth moving around, I worried about where it would end… if it would end.

I was afraid to smile. This is why my husband was in favor of the procedure. He says he wants me to smile again.

I should have given up my vanity and pride and just smiled with the tooth sticking out, but it was so hard for me. I would smile carelessly, forgetting myself, and then a shock like pain would shoot through my chest as I realized what I had exposed and quickly pulled my lips back over the ugly tooth, wondering if I had frightened any small children.

God forgive me and help me, and please don’t let me die in braces and please don’t let all my teeth fall out.