Everything is a little more complex than you think it is. That's just about the one piece of "wisdom" I think I've figured out over the course of 16 years. Maybe in another 16 I'll figure out why that's so.
At A Glance Author Liz Contact [email protected] When N/A I've always thought of myself as independent, as someone who does her own thing while trying not to worry about what others think. As a complete individual. Then again, I'd like to point out that I've always been pretty good at deluding myself! So what does this have to do with body modification? It took a close shave with a needle to make me question that. To make me think that maybe there was a little more to it than that.
For a long time, I was very scornful of people who dressed or acted noticeably to prove to everyone how "individual" they were. "Look how much I don't care what you think of me!" was the message I was getting from them, and I rolled my eyes in disgust at their hypocrisy. Well, mostly. Dig one layer deeper and you'll find that I felt like an idiot for spending my prepubescent years doing the same thing. Letting people control my actions by having to prove to them that I wasn't letting them control my actions. I love irony.
But I was over that. I was grown up! I was 16 and I knew who I was and I knew what I was doing. And I knew why I wanted to get my lobes pierced.
I'd never gone in much for teenaged rebellion against the big bad evil parents. Both of my nostrils are pierced, but a week before my appointment, with both of them, I'd sit down and explain to my parents what I was going to get done and why, and check if this was going to freak them out too much. I scrapped plans for a vertical bridge because my father said there was no way he'd be able to look me in the face if I got one. When I move out, I can get it done. But I live in their house, and I want to respect their feelings.
When I was very small, I wanted more than anything to get my ears pierced. Looking back on it now, I respect my parents' choice not to let a child make a permanent change in her body. I think that was a smart thing to do. Dig one layer deeper, though, and you'll find that I sort of resented the fact that my body had been controlled by someone else.
Well, that layer surfaced a little while ago, and I decided I was going to "reclaim" my lobes and have them pierced. I was going to feel totally comfortable with my body. I was going to SHOW MY PARENTS WHO WAS BOSS...oops! Did I say that? No, no, I meant that I was going to truly grow into who I am and express myself. Yes. That was what I was doing.
I made an appointment with Juliette at One, in Ottawa. I do certainly recommend her, as a side note, to anyone who's going to get pierced. Just because this one didn't work out doesn't mean I won't trust her with all the rest of my work. She did a fabulous job on my nose, and she likes my two-minute fudge squares. My stomach was churning when I did so. Stupid parents, making me feel uncomfortable about my...whoops! There I go again. What I mean is, it's good that I'm excited about this important change.
The day of the appointment rolled around. It was one of those days where everything went wrong. I'd had a hard day at school and was due at my minimum-wage grocery store job in two hours. As I walked to the studio, my heart was pounding. I'd been held up on the bus on the way there, so I was a quarter-hour late. It was getting dark, and I was so nervous that the twilight shadows were jumping out at me. I couldn't understand why this was giving me such a bad feeling. I was just excited, I told myself, but a miserable feeling in the pit of my stomach lent the lie to my words. I was going to do this, though. I had to.
When I arrived, late, the shop was closed. I breathed a sigh of relief that I convinced myself was a sigh of disappointment and trudged onwards to Loblaws to stock shelves for five hours. When I got home at 10:30 that night, I ran to my room and immediately burst into tears.
That was a very, very long night.
One of the worst feelings in the world is when you realize you've been a complete idiot. Now, I don't know if the reason I don't happen to like the aesthetic of pierced ears is because my parents told me they were bad at a young age, or because I simply don't find them attractive. I'll probably never know if it was nature or nurture. Regardless, it's part of me now, and I realized on that night that the reason I was getting this done was, basically, to prove my independence to my parents. To prove that now I could do anything I wanted, and they couldn't stop me.
I thanked whatever power that made me late that day, whether it was God or the OC Transpo system.
Why didn't I get my lobes pierced? Because I don't like the way it looks. Not because of anyone else (leaving the nature/nurture debate aside), but because I don't like them.
I made a promise to myself that night. The reason I modify my body is because I love and respect it, cheesy as that sounds. I promised my body that I would never do anything to it because of anyone else. I would never get a piercing because it was "new" or "extreme" or would make me look "cool" to any one group. I would never NOT get a piercing because "everyone has one". I would not let anyone tell me what to do with MY body.
I felt, as the sun came up, that that was more of a reclamation of myself than getting the piercing. I know now that my lobes are not pierced but whole, because I chose for them to be.