Then...
- 19 years old
- Tokyo Disney Land, Japan
Now...
- 48 years old
- Kuna, Idaho
- Stay-at-home-mom / Blogger
My Story...
Hi, I‘m Kaori. As you see in the picture, I hated my smile. When I was very young, my top teeth were behind my bottom teeth when I close them. (anterior crossbite?) So, my parents took me to the dentist (There weren’t orthodontists back then.) and I got a retainer like brace. After a while, my parents stopped taking me to the dentist. As a result, my teeth went crazy. I didn’t care much about it when I was in younger elementary age, but as I grew older, it became a major issue for me.
I hated my smile so much I had a hard time finding a picture that was showing my teeth, because I threw away many pictures when I was young. (I kept this because this is one of the pictures of the trip to the Tokyo Disney Land with friends.) In many pictures I have, I was only smiling and not grinning. I didn’t tell anyone that I was troubled. I even couldn’t ask my dad for help because I knew he wouldn’t pay for it. (He was a single father.) Finally at age 20, I had enough money to fix some of the problems.
I’m lucky I had friends who didn’t care how my smile looked like and accepted me as who I was.