What am I doing??

I think I am getting braces.

Well, I am 90% sure I will. Maybe 85%.

I know. Crazy talk. I’m 57, not 17.

I spent a long time on Saturday afternoon with an orthodontist at the NIB Dental Care Centre.

The form I filled out in the waiting room was very amusing. It requested information on my guardian and whether any of my siblings had braces and other irrelevant stuff for someone who is on the slippery slope towards a pensioner’s card.

Then there were lots of x-rays and photographs and questions.

I tried to get a read on whether the orthodontist was suggesting braces for cosmetic or functional reasons.

I’m still not entirely clear.

My front top four teeth are held in position with a piece of wire. About 40 years ago my orthodontist was tearing his hair out trying to stop them flaring like Chad Morgan’s every time he removed my retainer plate. He went to an international conference that featured a new permanent wire technique and I was his guinea pig.

The same wire he glued to my teeth all those years ago is still there, although the left side has detached a few times in recent years and required repairs.

The two left teeth have been torquing around each other on the wire. One has kicked forward and the other has kicked back.

It’s pretty obvious when I look in the mirror – a crater has formed in my top gum because the root of one tooth has tilted back so far.

And, apparently, if we are fixing my top teeth then we might as well do the bottom ones as well, so they are perfectly aligned.

He said my tooth issue is not suitable for Invisalign, so I am staring down the barrel of wearing actual, proper braces for 18 long months.

The orthodontist assured me that braces look much better than when I last had them in the 1980s. Then he whipped out a model, which I thought they looked exactly the same as braces in the 1980s.

Although you can now pay $500 extra and get tooth-coloured porcelain ones on your top teeth, which are a teensy bit less ugly.

The braces will cost the same as a luxury cruise.

Sigh.

But I want them. The twisted teeth look and feel strange. They are bothering me.

But, then, everything is bothering me. I am at a bothered crossroads in my life.

I feel a desperate urge to run away.

This happens to me at irregular intervals.

The sense of relief I felt when I moved to Singapore in my early 30s made me giddy with delight.

The pressures of normal life swamp me sometimes – like a tsunami wave – and I yearn to escape.

But at my age, with a tariff war engulfing the world, it feels like I need to … brace myself … and ride this one out.

Song of the day: Barry Manilow “Can’t smile without you”