retainers and therapy
doctors claim
you are straightened out

after teenage years, but

to get a lasting result
patients and professionals

are self-aware of the

diligent process of

holding yourself together

-pozzi

My mouth is my first organ I was able to witness undergo a lifespan of transformation. At every stage in my life, my voice and mouth were always evolving in some type of construction. Remodeling and altering the physical and verbal appearance and depth to become the voice I use today.

I got braces in first grade because I could stick my tongue through the gaps in between my teeth. I had them on and off three times for years at a time. Finally, in high school, I got plastic retainers as well as a bonding retainer glued behind my front teeth. I still go for monthly visits to tighten and tweek them so that my teeth can reach a comfortable perfection.

Coincidentally, the voice inside my mouth has transformed itself with the help of a professional. I started going to art therapy in fourth grade because my mother had leukemia. I had another in middle school when I was caught sending risky pictures.

As a child and teen, I was never open with either therapists. I wasn’t sure how to grasp utilizing someone that could help me understand what I was going through. Little did I realize it would be the building blocks for how I communicate presently.

It was my college social worker during my senior year that really helped unlock the words I had within. She was patient with me ditching her the first three years and didn’t mind when I stopped in for small talk or to hear the dramatic woes of crushes that never noticed me and roommate situations. I made a small goal the start of my senior year to really use her before I left, unraveling past traumas I feel more comfortable sharing today. My therapist now not only helps me understand my traumas and myself, but helps me manifest my present and future. It's a life that I can confidently say is filled with self-worth and self-esteem.

At one of my orthodontist appointments, I was seated next to a twelve-year-old getting their braces off for the first time (still on my parents insurance thank god). The mother watched her son smack and click his shiny new retainer in his mouth, unaware of the future they will have together consisting of shelling out hundreds of dollars for lost, broken and chewed up plastic pieces.

"So how long does he have to wear it, just a few years?" She asked the orthodontic assistant who watched me cry in pain for broken brackets and smile with glee as I picked out my braces rubber band colors when I was younger. "We used to say a few years, but if you really want lasting results, it will be for a lifetime.” I sat in the chair frustrated. Who wants to be at the orthodontist as a thirty-five-year old sitting next to pre-teens?

With this minor situation engraved in the back of my mind I set out for the next few weeks consisting of therapy, work and some life changing events. I stayed up one night thinking how great it will finally be to be “cured” of all my trauma. How much more abundance I will have in my life. Will I still even have to see a therapist?

I bookmarked a New York Times article and gave it another read. “He Showed Me His Tiles, So I Showed Him Mine,” is written from the standpoint of a married woman with children who still goes to therapy after completing her life long goal of no longer being single. She told her therapist that she would kill herself if the next guy she meets turns out to be a dud. Friends and family ask her why she still goes, especially when baby number two is on the way.

“Now it was where I deepened my capacity to love and attach in all my relationships, especially with my therapist, the first person I let love me in all my messiness. My relationship with him set the stage for every healthy relationship I now had, especially the one with my husband. I had come for the humbling and the learning. I would stay for the love.”

It then lead me to realize that work is never done. My favorite camp quote, “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey” made me realize that I shouldn’t be in such a rush because there are amazing times throughout my process. What will lead me to manifest all the things I want is my persistence and growing self-confidence. I am deserving regardless of my past and what happens in my present and future.

There is always work to be done to elevate myself to my best most intimate self. I’m going to be middle aged scheduling extended lunch breaks to talk to my orthodontist about my children’s teeth, but I’ll be leaps farther with emotional persistence receiving the help I deserve with a straight bright smile.