Saturday, June 9, 2018

I Could Kiss Like Fire

Not only is my house causing me great anguish, but so is my mouth. If we go back, once again, to my diatribe from the other night, I think some of the things I mentioned are wisdom teeth and jaw surgery. This isn't something I advertise because why would I? but I have a totally open bite. It doesn't sound like a big deal, I know, and you probably don't even understand what I mean, but when my friend Curt was over about a month ago and I showed it to him, he said he was deeply disturbed.

What an open bite means is that, like, you know how when you bite down your teeth probably completely, or at least mostly, touch from the molars on one side to the front to the molars on the other side? Like, they pretty much touch all the way around? Well, my teeth don't touch. Like almost at all. My back two molars touch on each side and the others not only don't touch at all, but the space between my bottom teeth and my top teeth is big enough for me to slide my entire tongue through with no obstruction whatsoever. They've been open for a while--eating a sandwich or biting through a piece of pizza has never been the easiest feat--but in the past couple years they've gotten much worse, bad enough, in fact, that I've recently noticed that when I talk fast or read out loud I have a hard time making some sounds, most specifically Vs and Fs (I've always had a cute little lisp so it doesn't really affect my Ss) but occasionally also other ones. At first I thought if I practiced my sounds Eliza Doolittle style, I could correct the problem on my own, but I could only say so many the rain in Spains are mainly on the plains before I realized this is not a problem I could correct on my own. 

What could correct it, I found, is not just braces because that would be way too not invasive and not just jaw surgery because even the breaking of my jaw, metal that would be embedded in it, and subsequent swelling that would last for months and months would be not awful enough but braces for up to a year and then jaw surgery and then braces for another six or so months. If I want to fix my separated jaw that seems to keep separating and who knows how separated it will be next year and in five years and in ten years after that, that's what I have to endure. And what I have to pay? Let's not even talk about that.

Instead how about we talk about how, because my life, as usual, seems to consist of nothing but perpetual decisions punctuated with a lot of injuries caused by the inefficient way that I run, I have to decide if I want to fix this jaw? Do I take my chances and hope it doesn't get any worse? Because if it doesn't, I can definitely survive. Or do I get the braces, get the surgery, and get the braces again because if the past couple years are indicative of anything, soon I'll sound like I'm hearing impaired and, according to the ten million or so websites I've been on, possibly get headaches and jaw aches and have trouble swallowing and breathing and doing just about anything normal people do with their normally constructed mouths?

Or going back to not getting the surgery, and I know this is going to sound really bad in more ways than one, I love kissing, and I'm really good at it. Like, seriously, when people ask me my talents, hobbies, or skills, it's something I always feel I should profess, and I've gotten way too many compliments from way too many people to think I'm wrong. What if I get the surgery and I can't kiss the same? Like, what if my mouth doesn't work? Or what if, like I read is a possibility on some websites, it's permanently partially numb? I know this sounds awful, but the thought of not properly kissing or having the feeling of being kissed for the rest of my life makes me really hesitant where this surgery is concerned.

So, um, yeah.

Kissing vs sounds...

(Should this be easy? Because it's totally not.)

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