i hate winnepeg

I've recently rekindled a friendship with an ex-boyfriend. He was a very big part of my life for about four years, he was my everything. He was with me through many firsts, through most of college and was my best friend through ups and downs and everything in between.

When things dissolved between us, as things eventually do with high school to college romances, there was a void in my life that I couldn't fill. I had a new guy, a new life and a new perspective, but I missed him. When we were both finally to a point where our friendship could resume, I think both of us felt that troublesome void finally ebb, finally feel a little less empty. He's my friend again, and I'm so very glad he's in my life.

But this isn't really about him specifically, well it is, but isn't at the same time. You see, he was always really into music. Always providing me with new material for my auditory discoveries. He's since changed a little, as we all do, and the relationship is a little reversed now. He taught me to love music, to want to hear more, to find more that I loved -- never question, just enjoy.

But a few weeks ago, he gave me the name of a song, One Great City! by a band called the Weakerthans. I pulled up YouTube to listen, and I was surprised when I knew the song. I'd heard it before. Another guy, one not too long ago, had played it for me on his guitar. I'd lay there on his couch listening, quietly smiling at how cute he was, and how odd the lyrics were. The song was one I hadn't known, and I had asked who it was by, fully intending to look it up when I'd left and gone back to my other life, hundreds of miles away from him.

As I sat at my computer, all of a sudden my worlds collided, and I realized in that moment, listening to this beautifully written song about the monotony of life and the artful grace in its quirks, that everything is connected. That no matter how much I like to think I know myself, things like this moment throw me for a loop. I realized that everything builds on everything else, that as much control as I think I have -- there's another factor. These men were connected, not only through a love of this song, (I've always had a "type," and sometimes it's more obvious than others...) but through me and who I am.

I've always been one to believe that every person who comes into your life leaves a mark and changes you. It may not be a profound change, but it's there.

It amazes me how music, like smells, are incredible memory triggers. Even now as I write this, I'm listening to this song, singing along to its lyrics about a grungy city in Canada, I'm transported briefly to his couch in Massachusetts, then memories start to mingle, I'm in Iowa, in the car surrounded by snow. In the field under the tree...

the saga continues

"Have a seat," they always say, "and let us take a look at what we've got going on here."

They lean the chair back and tell you to open wide. They stick the little mirrored circle in your mouth to take a closer look. They're faces scrunch as they peer into an abyss littered with white stalactites.

"Hmm, OK, well we've got a little problem here."

That's the way it has always seemed to go for me. Genetics blessed me with a pretty rotten set of teeth. They're not actually rotten, just in the wrong places. I've been to orthodontists, dentists and oral surgeons since I was about 11 years old. And it hasn't ended yet.

My tally: Two rounds of braces totaling 5 years, 13 tooth extractions including both front teeth and one adult tooth, and a round of oral surgery to expose a tooth on its side so it could be righted by braces. Two years from now, we'll be able to add two additional extractions, another set of braces and another bout of oral surgery to that list.

I'm not complaining, well, maybe I am a little bit, but I just find it completely insane that some kids never even wear braces and I've dealt with all this. Perhaps orthodontia needs kids like me to keep them in business. For every braceless face, there's the girl with a lifetime subscription.

I'm currently facing another four months of braces at the fabulous age of 22. These orthodontic nightmares will most likely accompany me through my job search and probably into the work place. I'm not exactly vain, sure I wax my eyebrows and I've had my nails done, but I like to look nice, and I think first impressions are really important. I look somewhere between 16 and 18 anyway, add braces and I'm done for.

But it's inevitable. It has to be done. As I was whining to my friend yesterday he told me, take a few days, be pissed off about it and then move on. He's always been good at stuff like that -- for the most part he knows how to let things slide off of him. I don't see him wearing braces at 22, but you know.

So here they come. Ready or not. The self-esteem will probably take a momentary hit, but I'm pretty sure this is just another lesson in endurance. It's about learning to live with what's put in front of me. I've been thinking a lot about fate recently -- chock it up to the fact that I'm graduating, but I actually think about it a lot. Maybe we're meant to endure certain hardships, they help us grow, they help us learn, they shape who we are.

I know, I know. They're just braces. But to me, they're a little more than that. I know it could always be worse. I know that, believe me, I know that. But I can't help but feel a little duped by my gene pool. To me, they're just another notch on a time line of annoyance in a mouth that's always been a problem. The saga continues.