My mother and I have never got along particularly well. Our relationship was "you leave me alone and I'll you alone."
At A Glance Author chloe Contact [email protected] Location Thunder Bay, ON When I first took an interest in modification, around the age of 14, she hated it. It was the source of countless fights, insults, and incidents that nearly led to me being kicked out of her house. She saw it as something I was doing out of peer pressure, which was absurd, as at the time none of my friends had any interest in modification. I didn't even know anyone, online or offline, who had any piercings other than their ears. To her, this was nothing more than a phase I'd eventually grow out of. She argued that I was ruining my life, that I'd never get a job, that my visible piercings would get me into fights at school, the list goes on and on. My father, though he never said much about it to me, felt the same way she did.
Somewhere along the line, something changed. When my 18th birthday rolled around, I was in college, living 17 hours away from my parents. My father called me one day and asked what I wanted for my birthday. I said I wanted a tattoo, expecting him to hang up on me. To my amazement, he said OK. So, when I was visiting for Christmas, my father paid for my first tattoo. My favourite birthday present thus far as it represents so many things.
It was then that I found out my mother had always wanted a tattoo. More specifically, she had always wanted a facial tattoo; a tiny butterfly tattoo close to one eye. As my father had threatened to divorce her if she ever got it, it was unfortunately something she never pursued. She was outraged that my father deemed it OK for me to have one. This led to many more fights.
Eventually, I had moved back into my parents house. After being back for about six months, my mother approached me and said she wanted to get a tattoo, regardless of how my father would react. I helped her pick out an image and took her to the studio to set up an appointment. A few days after she got her tattoo she approached me again. This time saying she wanted to get her eyebrow pierced. All the memories of the things she had said when I had my eyebrow pierced came flooding back. I wanted to scream at her. Why was it OK for her to have her eyebrow pierced but not for me? Rather than scream at her, I took a step back and had a moment of realization. After all this time she and I had found some common ground. I made an appointment for her with my piercer and took her to the shop the next day.
Sitting with her when she got her eyebrow pierced was amazing. Here is something I'm so passionate about, and I now have the chance to use it as a medium to better my relationship with the one who brought me into this world. Words will never be enough to explain how happy I was to be there with her. After she had the initial jewellery changed, I asked her for the ring. She gave it to me and I had it put in my ear. I still have that ring in, a constant reminder of what we share.
Ever since being pierced, she became accepting of my desire to be modified. She understood why without me having to explain it. She's now accepted that this is not a phase I'll be growing out of anytime soon, that I'm not ruining my life, or any of the other things she used to think. She was in awe of my surface piercing and has a fascination with my ongoing project of stretching my ears. It took us many years, but she and I have an unspoken understanding and acceptance of each other.
More than a year later, it still occasionally shocks me that the person who hated my modifications the most has joined the ranks of the modified community. To know that my mother, a nurse in her late forties, was willing to give up her husband and her job in order to be modified fills my world with confidence and gives me hope for the future of Western society. I should add that she lost neither her husband nor her job.
She and I were talking the other day about her plans for another tattoo and a nose ring. During the conversation she told me how proud she is that I never gave up my desire to be modified, despite all the things she had said in the past, as it had opened her eyes to another world. When she and I go out in public and someone gives me a strange look, she's the first to ask them if they have a problem with my appearance and to tell them that they would be lucky to have a child like me. Again, words will never be enough to explain my feelings about that.
It was a long bumpy road, but we have finally reached a higher plane. She truly respects me for all I have done, and I can say with all honesty that I respect her for what she's done.
I love my mother.