After about 45 weeks of almost flawless fitment, my Invisalign trays started to get out of whack at the end of last month, specifically the top sets. Usually they go in with a nice satisfying click as they fit around the little nubs glued to your teeth (the trays need something to grab onto), but mine weren’t clicking. The tray was hanging down more and more to the point where I couldn’t wear them during the day because they gave me a horrible slobbering lisp. I checked in with the orthodontist, they rescanned my upper and lower palate, and I picked up two new boxes of trays the other day. When I put the top set in I got the click and they fit perfectly. I put the newest set in Tuesday night and I can tell they’re now working on moving my premolars outward to continue making room for the front teeth—which are almost straight—because the premolars are sore as shit. I’ve got about 30 weeks left in the series, which will put me somewhere around the end of the year for a straighter smile.
So I’ve been through this before. The last time this happened, I was working for a big fancy-shmancy firm in D.C., commuting three hours a day, and waiting for a real assignment. (They had me working on a favor site, called the Museum of Cake, for about a month. I’d come from the corporate dot-com world, and it was hard to shift gears into baked goods from satellite broadband delivery.)
That time, I had a pretty sizable war chest saved up. I also had a rock-bottom mortgage payment, I owned my car outright, and I was looking forward to some time to work on the basement of my house, so it kind of worked out. I spent most of those two months painting, putting up drywall, running electrical, and living frugally. I didn’t have the heart to work much on the computer—in fact, I took most of that month off from the computer entirely, looking only occasionally at my email. For a lot of reasons, I was depressed and demoralized. The industry I’d claimed as my own was in steep decline in Baltimore. Most of the shops who’d flown so high were now closed down. There was noplace to look for work locally, and I’d not spent enough time in D.C. to make contacts there.
This time is very similar, but also a little different. The mortgage payment is much bigger now, but we still don’t have to make any car payments. We have an equity line of credit, which isn’t the same as having money saved, but also means we’ve got an emergency fund. I’m looking at a house which needs a monumental amount of work, and I suddenly have a lot of time to do it. This time, I’ve also been keeping busy on the side doing freelance work, so I’ve got a current portfolio to draw from.
I’m going to use this as an opportunity and try not to look at it like a curse. I’ve been wanting to switch back over to web design full-time for a while now, and also resurrect my illustration career. The only thing that’s been keeping me from doing that is a lack of time. You’ll see the progress here and over on my portfolio site (which is going to see a major overhaul in the next couple of weeks) while I make about a million lists, start drawing again, continue developing websites, and try not to freak out too much about being self-employed.
Your former employer was a great place. You met a lot of wonderful people whom you can now call friends. The work you did in the last 4-6 weeks there allows you to leave knowing that you were making progress when the door opened and you were politely escorted out. It’s not like you left without finally putting your heart into it, as you would’ve done had this happened earlier.
When you went there it was a safe harbor. But as my father, so fond of sayings, always told me, a ship’s not built for a harbor…
You can “freak out” as much as you need, but I’ll keep reminding you that this is eversomuch a blessing. A terrifying one, but one nonetheless.