Life is a little calmer this week. At least where school is concerned. I turned in the first draft of a short play yesterday for one class, took a jazz quiz in another so I am feeling pretty OK about things today. After the jazz quiz we did partner stretches and one of my favorite people at school was my partner. At one point he said, “Gee Marietta, you are strong!” And I reminded him how I beat him at a plank competition last semester. He told me not to remind him. It reminded me of how competitive I can be. But also how strong I can be when I put my mind to it.
The big news is that I got my permanent teeth put in-again! The first time they were put in over a year ago, they were never quite right and eventually, through healing, moved to where they were really wrong! Then a few weeks ago we tried to fix all of that, but the new teeth were not the right color so back they went. Today they finally put them in and the new teeth are comfortable and look better. I hope that ordeal is over for the time being at least!
Driving to school after the dentist visit (I did not let them numb me, because I had a scene to work in directing class) I was thinking about the whole ordeal of my teeth. I can remember like yesterday when I fell during a dress rehearsal for a show at church. I was taping down some cable and slipped on the edge of a step. I saw the floor coming at me quickly and then felt my mouth hit the edge of a step. Immediately I knew I had messed up BIG! My mouth was bleeding and the pain was intense. I knew that with the show I was opening the next night and the show I was about to do at school starting rehearsals soon, I was screwed! I howled, more with angst than pain. What would happen- would I be able to perform- EVER? How awful would I look? Would I ever sing again? Would my dream of my degree die? I thought of every awful thing you can imagine as I cried and bled. My sweet husband dropped everything to take me home and contact our dentist who came to our house!
So here I am, a year and a half later. When I knew that I would not be able to save the four front teeth I decided that if I was going through all of this pain and expense I wanted a movie star smile. Of course, the fact that the rest of my teeth are not blindingly white or straight never even dawned on me- I wanted perfection for all of this drama! Of course, my dentist knew I could not have four gleaming white teeth and the rest, well, not. He also knew that healing takes time and that this could go on for a while. And in actuality I settle sometimes. I hate to be a bother. When he first put in my teeth I knew they didn’t feel right, but I knew I could get used to them. My mom always says when you ask her if she is happy that she is adaptable and therefore OK. It infuriates me because you aren’t supposed to just adapt, make do. Life is better than that! But I have a little of her in me and I don’t want to be a bother so I adapt, sometimes.
I remember when Jim Henson died. I read a story where he had pneumonia and got a cab to the hospital after days of being really ill. The cab dropped him on the wrong side of the hospital from the emergency entrance, but instead of being a bother he walked in the cold weather around the hospital until he got to the emergency entrance. By then he was so ill and weak that eventually he died. That might not be the facts, but somewhere I read that and remember thinking, especially at that time in my life, that I could see me doing just that! And I vowed to be a little more assertive. Not a pushy, “all about me” type, but not such a doormat either. I had never been as weak as my mom, but I could see myself falling down that slippery slope.
So when we had filed my uneven teeth and worked on keeping up appearances while the gums healed for as long as we could, it was time to start over. Again, I dreamed of perfection, but when the next set came in they were yellow. Not anywhere near the color of my teeth! The dental assistant put them in to look at (not glued in) and I saw they did not match very well. But I said nothing because I wanted to be done. She shook her head and called the dentist who said no. He sent them back and put me back in temporaries. Four more weeks. But today when they put them in, not only did they match in color, but finally , FINALLY, they felt right. And after all of this I knew that is what mattered most!
A side story- when they went to take out the temporaries last time, they pulled and tugged and I thought they would pull off my head to get them out. This time she barely touched them and they fell out. That was scary! If they were so lightly glued in they could have come out in a sandwich at any time! Even the hygienist said that was not good! And if it had happened? Well, let me just say that whenever I am without my teeth, between temps for measuring etc., the dentist tells me absolutely NOT to look in a mirror because I would be too upset! So I do not want to be without in public!
So for now it is over. But when I got to school I looked at my mouth and thought, “someday I will have my whole mouth done so it is perfect!” But really? Perfection? I have a picture of a haircut I want to take to my hairdresser tomorrow. The fact that my hair wasn’t perfect when I had to give my curtain speeches for The Heidi Chronicles this past weekend drove me nuts! But I had two strangers tell me how much they loved my hair in that same crowd of people I had to speak in front of! I think my perfectionism is something my family relies on and my grades are attributed to. But how far can you take it when real life is involved? Can my singing be perfect- not even close! So I am terrified of my BFA project! Can the plays I am writing be perfect- Lord no! They are awful! Is everything I say just right? NO! I stop myself in class because I don’t want to sound stupid, but day in and day out I say things so stupid I leave conversations wanting to beat my head against the wall!
But the teeth are in, the BFA is in rehearsal, the times I can talk to my friends are priceless and my imperfection will be there for all of the world to see. I just wish I could feel free to dance, to sing, to create, to talk and know that no one else expects perfection from me like I expect perfection from me! And I wish I could ignore the people who seem to work at making me feel less than. They can’t do that unless I let them. And I have to be tough enough to not let them. So I keep plugging along, now with teeth that fit and look right. And maybe I have learned one more lesson in all of my life lessons. Maybe, just maybe, like the cast of The Heidi Chronicles shouted before each performance last weekend, I am enough.
