Find your smile

A little over a month ago, I did something. I found my smile again. Let me explain.

I always had a nice smile. For the longest time growing up, I was told my smile was perfect. As I got older, that was no longer the case. Through years of not really taking care of my mouth, I found myself with a rather lackluster smile. I had more pieces and jagged edges that left me with nothing to smile about. I had, essentially lost my smile.

A little over a month ago, I began the process of having my smile replaced. Once I had the procedure completed, I found myself smiling again. I have felt better than I have in years, and I no longer am ashamed to talk to people face to face or to smile, due to the shape of my smile.

As I thought back over the process of regaining my smile, I got to thinking that there are many things that can cause us to lose our smile. Maybe it is a physical situation like I had. Maybe it is a failed relationship, or trouble at work. Maybe it is sickness or loss of a loved one that causes us to lose our smile. Whatever the reason, we are no longer comfortable to wear a smile for the world to see. We may begin to feel like we will never be able to find our smile again.

But I call disagree. Whatever the reason for your lack of smile. I can say that, with a fair amount of certainty, that you can find your smile back. Maybe it won’t take a large amount of dental work. Maybe a simple weekend away will get the grin going again. Or maybe it may take changing jobs or simply learning how to turn the job off when you are at home. Maybe it will take remember the good times with the loved ones you have lost, and working hard to honor their legacy. Maybe it will be in finding a friend or two who can sit and listen when the world seems it is at its darkest.

You can smile again. It may take days, weeks, months, or even years, but I promise you that you will be able to find your smile if you just look for it. You just have to decide that you a tired of walking around with a constant of RBF, and that you want to smile again. And when you do, Katie bar the door! You will find yourself smiling from ear to ear all the time!

I can’t tell you the number of people who have come to me and told my how much happier and comfortable I look, now that I have regained my smile. I am sure that, no matter the reason you lost yours, once you find your smile again you will have the same thing happens for you. People will ask you “What is different,” and your answer will be a grin from ear to ear because you have not only regained your smile, but you have once again found joy in this everyday thing called life.