Invisalign at 42. Here's why. (It’s about more than teeth.)

The least they could do is put a TV in here," says the man sitting six appropriately socially distant seats from me in a chilly and otherwise empty orthodontist's waiting room. He's wearing a mask so I can't see his entire face, but he looks and sounds like he's my age. Which is the age straight men hunt for social connections with other men by lobbing conversational mealworms at them — Sports! Weather! Kids! Cars! — hoping, wishing, longing, yearning for someone to take the bait. "Yeah, some 'SportsCenter' would be nice," I oblige, because, well, I'm fishing too.

Our polite conversation continues, like a hitchhiker and his new ride playing "So … Which of Us Is the Serial Killer?" until he says something that confirms a suspicion I'd had. "Yeah, my kid just got her license, but I'm still her chauffeur."

Ah. He thinks I'm also here to provide a ride for my kid. Should I tell him I'm here for my own teeth, or should I just wait until they call me back?

The instant I finish the thought, a young woman emerges from the void. "Mr. Young. We're ready for you now." I nod at the visibly perplexed fisherman, who nods back, and then I disappear.

I don't quite know where to start the story of the journey that led to me deciding last year, at 42, to get Invisalign, so let's begin somewhere safe: Tom Cruise.

In 2002, Cruise famously began wearing braces, and the general public response to this was less than kind. It was seen as the ultimate act of vanity by a vaguely humanoid android attempting to cheat age. Of course, Cruise might be an actual vampire, so grain of salt.

But that sentiment concretized a feeling I'd already had, that the pursuit of cosmetic orthodontic work had a nebulous but very real expiration date. Once you're past, I don't know, 25, your teeth are your teeth.

I was 23 then. And my decade-long desire to close the gap between my two front teeth, and the smaller gaps that had evolved between others, had begun to shift to desperation. But I couldn't afford it. And when my 25th birthday came and went with no change to my money, the shame I'd already felt about the gap merged with the spanking new shame of being an adult too broke to afford braces. And then also the sneaky stank stupid shame of feeling like I was too old to even still care. And if I did ever get unbroke enough to fix my teeth, the shame of having braces as an adult — which I felt would've communicated a triflin' marriage of vanity and right-up-until-yesterday poverty — would've been waiting for me.

Shame, of course, is powerless without a willing host. You can't shame someone unless they have the capacity to feel it. I could've just given it the finger. But then I'd also have to exist in a new body in an alternative reality where money wasn't an equilibrium-shifting leviathan that validates, crushes, cleanses, brightens, whitens.

So much of the conversation about money centers on what people with too much of it can do instead of what people without it can't do at all. When you don't have any, when you've never had any and ain't sure you ever will, you don't feel normal.

At least I didn't. Because normalcy is defined by the collective, the cumulative. The various rites of passage that constitute how we're socialized.

But socialization has hidden fees. How will you get a driver's license at 16, like the rest of your classmates, when your parents don't have a car? When will you take a vacation — any vacation, anywhere — when you're paid by the hour and extra money is a reverie? Enough of these misses, and you feel — I felt — unplugged.

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And that's what shame looks and feels like, mostly. It's not so much a nemesis actively antagonizing you, but a lingering, self-possessed feeling of not belonging. Where forces out of your control cluster in your brain and collude to make you feel perpetually ineligible.

So why Invisalign now? The truth is that I can afford it, finally. But the truth ain't always honest, because I've been able to afford it for years. What made now different? The honest answer was revealed during my first conversation with my orthodontist.

"How's business been, considering the pandemic?"

"Great, actually. Never been this booked. Way more adults than usual."

"Why do you suspect that is?"

"Everyone's wearing a mask now."

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Previously:
• 02/17/21 Meet my dad --- the Grim Reaper's publicist