Teeth

All right I admit it, this might be a bit of a strange topic to talk about on a Burlesque Blog. Tips for red-lipstick yes, but teeth??
Kind of weird.....unless you're me.

You see when I was younger I'm pretty sure I was supposed to have braces but we couldn't afford them, the result being that I have fairly crooked teeth and five canine teeth instead of four. Now I'm not saying that I have the worst teeth ever, I mean, I don't look like an English woman from the 13th century or anything but they are far from perfect.
And for years, but especially during highschool, I HATED my teeth, I thought they were hideous and made me look like a troll and I would do anything not to caught doing a wide toothed smile in photos or in public.

I tried everything; from adopting a sarcastic side smile to ducking out of photos and claiming that 'I didn't like my photo being taken' which was utter bullshit as I've always been a camera whore. For the most part though I was pretty successful at hiding my 'hideous teeth' with the exception of some family photos and photobooth ones of me and my sister, but that was okay because then it was just the two of us.
All except one.
It was taken by my friend Darla who was quite a good photographer even then and in it I was sunburned, fully freckled and laughing like a loon.

I hated that photo.

I mean really hated it. I thought it was the ugliest photo anyone had ever taken of me because all I could see was my teeth. My horrible ugly teeth, all gnarled and crooked and no matter how many people told me that it was a cute photo and not a bad one I didn't believe them. Of course more than ten years later I realize they were right and I wish I actually had that photo, because out of all the ones that were taken of me during that era I think that one actually showed me for me. No make-up, no disguises, just a sweet faced freckled girl with red hair who was having fun.

It's taken me a long time to accept my crooked teeth, and I'm not saying that I'm not envious of people who seem to have flawless white smiles because I am, but I realize now that my smile is my own and it's a good one.

Crooked teeth and all.


(photo by Greg McKinnon)