I Got Braces at 50

For decades, Catherine Hong never showed her teeth when she smiled. What else was she repressing?

- Catherine Hong

As I hit middle age, I'm guilty of wanting to hold back time. I dread deadlines, facial lines, and annual doctor visits. I mourn the days when I could carry my children on my hips. I don't want my parents, now in their 80s, to get a day older. And if I really must be honest, I'll confess that deep down inside, I wish time wouldn't speed along quite so fast, because even at 52, I feel like I need more time to accomplish all the other stuff-personal, professional-I was supposed to as a grown-up.

But recently, I've developed a new craving one in direct contradiction to this yearning. I want time to zip by. I fantasize about falling into bed and waking up six months, nine months, a whole year into the future. This is because I have braces.

Seventeen months ago, after years of hemming, hawing, and trying to convince myself I should focus on self-improvement of the less vain and superficial variety, I surrendered myself to an orthodontist. The same orthodontist, in fact, who fixed my daughter's teeth when she was in seventh grade and who has probably had his hands in the mouths of a quarter of the kids in our town. I sat myself down across from him, pointed to my teeth, and said, "I need to fix these."

To put it bluntly, I had some really bad buckteeth. My two top front chompers were pushed so far out beyond my other teeth that they had practically formed their own archipelago, disconnected from the mainland. They also seemed larger than they had any right to be, monstrous in both height and width. They were like two obnoxious people who showed up to a concert in a public park and plopped a pair of giant lawn chairs front and center, blocking the view of everyone sitting on the grass. I had problems with other teeth, too, including lateral incisors on the top and bottom that jutted out at awkward angles, like cars parked in a hurry outside an emergency room.