A little over a week ago, a filling in one of my front teeth fell out. Now this might sound like an odd thing to happen, but it actually happens to me on a regular basis. Despite the fact that I had braces as a teenager, my bite is so messed up that my lower front teeth smack into my upper front teeth every time I close my mouth. Which is why one of my upper front teeth is actually fractured in half, my fillings pop out on a regular basis and I’m getting braces again next week. Joyous! At any rate, I’ve become very accustomed to fillings popping out. I call up my dentist, she puts a new one in, I’m in and out in less than an hour. Well the problem this time around is that my dentist was out of town when it happened, so I had to wait over a week to get it fixed. Which meant a week of walking around with a gap-snaggle tooth. In my head it looked something like this.
I’d like to say that I am confident enough in myself that this didn’t bother me, and for the most part it didn’t. However, the couple of times that I had my picture taken I was very aware of it. I also met a writer/actor that I have a great deal of respect for and had a 45 minute conversation with him . . . flashing my snaggle tooth the entire time. I didn’t realize this until later, but when it hit me, I was mortified. I had to step back and remind myself, that if it didn’t bother, or even occur to me at the time, why should it bother me after the fact? Which really got me thinking. So the next day I pointed it out to someone that I was talking to. Guess what? She hadn’t noticed. I had to smile big and full on point it out before she was able to see what I was talking about.
This thing that in my mind was so incredibly obvious, was invisible to everyone else. I tested my theory, and started pointing it out to almost every new person I talked to, and trust me it was put on display. I have one of those smiles that shows off every damn tooth in my head. Not a single one of them had noticed, or were polite enough to lie about not noticing. In other words, nobody cared. They were too busy with their own lives and concerns to give a crap about some minor imperfection that I felt I had. Which got me thinking again, this time about how many times I have had friends bemoan cellulite, or wrinkles, or a pimple. Each time I would say something to the effect of, I don’t think other people are seeing what you’re seeing. Or if they are seeing what you’re seeing, they don’t care. I guess that’s my take away, people don’t care, and it’s fabulous. And sadly, I can’t show off my actual snaggle tooth, as I forgot to take a close-up picture before getting it fixed this morning. Ah well. Next time.