Around one year ago, I realized that I had to wear glasses. My vision had begun to get fuzzier, and although I could still see without glasses, I realized that the smaller words my teachers wrote on the blackboards became small fuzzes, as if someone had smudged the world.

So I transitioned from wearing glasses sparsely at school to full-time. Then I realized how annoying it was to have something on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Every morning, I would go to school, and then… whoops! Guess I left my glasses at home.

Or maybe it was… ding! Glasses are still at home, Mom! Can you drive me back? I know we’re already on the freeway. Please?

My mom was frequently not very happy after I began to wear glasses.

But then it got better. I stopped thinking of glasses as such a pain, and gradually, I would simply swipe them off the bedside table and place them on my nose whenever I woke up without thinking.

Today, glasses are bearable. But one thing isn’t: braces.

Unlike glasses, I don’t have a choice with braces. Braces were glued onto my teeth with sickly sour cementing glue to make my teeth straight. I wasn’t given straight teeth, and now I had to undergo this.

There is something intensely annoying about having something stuck to the front of my teeth. Not only do I feel like someone has glued pebbles onto my teeth and made it into a riverside, it feels like my teeth are longer. I feel like my mouth protrudes as long as my dog’s snout.

The painful metal things did absolutely nothing to me except: cause pain, slowly torture me, make eating something a hassle, and make brushing teeth and flossing an actual event.

The day after I got my braces, I took a look at myself in the mirror and nearly swallowed my tongue. I freaked out. There were now things on the front of my teeth.

I do not like braces.

The first few days, it was simply the soreness and the weirdness. The soreness was constant, and nothing the doctor could have said would have alleviated the sore. It felt like something was constantly tugging on my teeth because… well, something was tugging on my teeth.

Then the pain came after the weirdness. It wasn’t the forced relationship my braces had with my teeth, but rather two kids in a neighborhood who were not playing well: my inner lip and the braces.

The inner lip of a human’s mouth is soft and tender. Place something not very soft and tender against it and rub all day, and sooner or later, bruises, bumps, and all sorts of pains will give.

I found myself with a small crack where the exposed wire laid against my cheek, a hurt cheek where bumps wore into it. It hurt. The wax the orthodontist gave me didn’t help that much.

But again, it’s all about time. It is now four days since the braces met my teeth. I can now eat apples, and I am so happy. I’m taking every chance to eat apples just to prove to myself that I can eat apples. One thing I still can’t do: eat a McDonald’s burger.

My mom bought me a grilled burger this afternoon as a treat. I bit into it, but then as I pulled the meat for it to come off, it stretched, but didn’t come apart. I pulled and I pulled like I was trying to eat a rubber ducky’s head.

Finally, the meat gave. But then there was something else waiting: the lettuce.

I do not like braces.