These past few weeks I’ve been hitting all sorts of adult milestones, from finishing my first year of college to getting my first credit card. And I got to experience another one rather unexpectedly, which seems to be a growing trend. No matter how hard I try to slow down my descent into adulthood, something comes along to speed up the process. This time? Getting my wisdom teeth out.

Getting your wisdom teeth removed is yet another process that is usually unavoidable, whether you like it or not. So far, I would say it's the closest symbolic representation of adulthood I’ve faced so far - but that might just be the NorCo talking. Adulthood, it seems, is just a never-ending cycle of expectations and responsibilities that you think you have a handle on, except there are neverending wrenches getting thrown in your way.

Ever since my brother got his wisdom teeth removed when I was in the fifth grade, it became some sort of vague reality to me. I don’t remember anything about his experience or recovery process, I just remember that he got to keep the teeth, which were huge and gross looking. To this day, I have this weird perception that anything that happens to my brother will happen to me. While I didn’t fail geometry like I was so afraid of doing, I had a feeling the wisdom teeth were going to need to come out at some point in the foreseeable future.

Due to the fact that these teeth were in my mouth and not growing in yet, they were literally out of sight-out of mind. That is until they made their debut and started causing me pain. I have a whole new appreciation for babies and why they cry so much. Starting in the fall of last year, my teeth starting bothering me to the point where I had to take Advil to control the pain. Babies don’t really have that luxury, and have to grow an entire set of teeth!

As soon as my teeth starting growing in, I knew I wanted them out. My dentist and I talked about it enough that in my mind, I expected to get them removed over winter break. Of course, a wrench had to get thrown into that plan. My dentist agreed the teeth should come out now, but there probably wasn’t any availability at the oral surgeon over the break, because you have to book a spot months in advance. I was quite confused and more than mildly irritated because we both knew the teeth were going to be ready to come out over winter break, yet he didn’t think to tell me to make the appointment.

My teeth weren't growing in sideways or anything, like a lot of people’s, do, so the urgency to take them out wasn’t extreme. Yet I still had to deal with the increasing amount of pain they were causing me, and all I had to look forward to was an initial consultation, not even a set removal date.

I came to the conclusion that they were just never going to come out. Eating anything crunchy became almost impossible. My mother stopped me while I was eating a salad, and said she hoped I didn’t eat like that in public or else my social life was going to struggle. I didn’t even realize it, but I was eating with my mouth open only using the front of my mouth, to avoid dealing with the pain.

We were both comforted by the fact that the solution (surgery) was in a couple days. Yet I was also pessimistic enough to believe that I wasn't going to get in for the summer, considering that’s when all the other college kids home from summer get theirs out - and they were probably able to get an appointment.

There was also the little hiccup of getting enough time off for the recovery process. The whole process of getting these wisdom teeth out was stressing me out to no end - like I’m sure adulthood was going to. Then a four day weekend at work presented itself, and I knew that opportunity was too good to be true.

I called the oral surgery office on a whim, thinking it was too far fetched to get an appointment three days before. Then what happened? I got an appointment for Thursday morning, just three days later. Getting my wisdom teeth out went from being seemingly impossible to being right around the corner, and I had three days to get ready for it.

I went into hyperdrive mode and started reaching out to everyone and anyone who had had their wisdom teeth out. The advice ranged from extremely helpful to totally useless but was appreciated nonetheless. I was told to buy frozen vegetables to puree and drink, and to buy a Nintendo 64 to play during the recovery process. I’m sure you can assume which advice I took.

I got the teeth taken out yesterday, and it was a wild experience. The whole process was totally laid back and I was in and out of the office, four teeth down, in less than an hour. I was pretty coherent following the surgery and was a little disappointed I wasn’t going to have a viral video to make me internet famous. I did have the extreme urge to sing along to “Can’t Feel My Face” which could find its way onto Funniest Home Videos if I was so inclined.

That was definitely the most unexpected part - not being able to feel my bottom lip or chin It made eating ridiculously difficult. I would think I was spooning mashed peas into my mouth when in reality they were just going onto my chin. Life has a funny way of repeating itself: I had the weird feeling I had experienced this same moment of spilling mashed peas all over myself when I was a baby, and that my sister was going to have to wipe mashed peas off my chin like I was an old lady.

I’m still trying to figure this whole recovery process out, but I have learned that adult sippy cups are your friend, especially since you can’t use spoons. So are pureed peas and macaroni and cheese.