"When my kid was born...That was the best, most important day of my life" Well alright. That's fine for you and the rest of the world but what about me? I don't have a kid or if I do they are about 3 years old and strategically hidden in a bunker somewhere waiting...Training...Becoming that which finally puts me to death. Even If I started now I'd have to wait 9 whole months for the most important day of my life.

But so wait, without a woman being cleft in twain before me spitting out my miracles what is the most important day of my life?

Sexual rite of passage? I think I've spent my brief adulthood proving sex plays as large a part in my life as it does to a character in a children's book.

First girl I loved who loved me back? Trivialized by a) Interior of a 1970s Chevrolet Van b) A bushparty and c) worst dialogue to grace a real life exchange I've personally ever encountered "I wanted to kiss you from the first moment I saw you" Seriously 17 year old Cam....Read a book.

The day I accomplished ____? Most of what I've accomplished I accomplished long after I cared about said accomplishment. Top of my Orchestra only when I was nearly the oldest member. Citizenship award when I really wanted a scholarship. Writing my name on the theater wall alongside everyone I loathe. Graduating. Making a movie I'm still not sure how I feel about. None of these really hit "most important day of my life".

Then at 6:30 am I awoke with such a clatter and it was upon me.

The day I got my braces off

I have impeccable personal dentistry.

That is to say my teeth aren't perfectly white, perfectly straight or perfectly sized but its a brilliant example of a storied human mouth. Not just, as many nappy haired black children have proclaimed commercially, a mouth with "NO CABBITIES!!".

I have large, classic United Kingdom choppers on the top. Textbook teeth. Large and blunt to crush and grind and diplomatically maim anything that should try to come into or get out of my mouth.

These are coupled with a lower jaw of small, vicious and strategic primeval teeth deftly hidden by an overbite. The goofily unassuming upper teeth invite parties in only to be ripped apart by the craggy rows of cloven incisors and science fiction cover bicuspids.

No other part of my body has assembled such a large team dedicated to their care and maintenance: hygenist, dentist, orthodontist and oral surgeon with hands like an orangutan.

Before my braces I had the teeth you'd find on a mould made off the bite marks on the body of a burnt up hooker. Sideways. Crooked. On top of eachother. I had to get four teeth removed just to get braces. I was mostly a goblin child and I didn't notice or care. My mouth was the hole you aimed for when you were pouring pixie stix at your face.

While I had braces I hated them. The tightening which made you feel like your teeth were suddenly made of Jelly and covered in individually fitted snowsuits. Pieces of wire digging into my lips and cheeks. There was something foreign controlling my body, distorting it and taking up space and it made me long for once for the perfection that was my body originally, the feeling that I didn't have a pound of extra wreckage in my mouth.

The day I got my braces off I ate a banana to see if it tasted different. It tasted the same but for the first time I appreciated the mouth around the banana and what it could do to it.

After that I took one of the greatest steps towards my adulthood: I started to brush and floss my teeth not because you are supposed to but because I finally realized my mouth is awesome and part of me and it deserves to kick just as much ass as it was made to. Put your tongue in someone else's and there's always the chance, even with the prettiest girl, it'll feel like a cold wet hole full of broken glass and a slug but god it's safe and amazing, smooth and just the right temperature in your own mouth.

Before my braces came off I never cared about bettering any part of myself and was never proud of the natural ease and small wonders which constantly exist in it.

Basically braces taught me to love myself.

try to top that baby