No matter how eloquent and well written you may be, sometimes things just don't turn out how you want them to. Things that effect you in the deepest possible way are often the ones that you find the most difficult to talk about, to express and to make sense of. With all that said, I hope you understand my difficulty in writing this and making it make logical sense as it's a topic close to my heart.
At A Glance Author Caroline Contact [email protected] IAM Momentary_Seizure When N/A June 21st, 2006
I have pretty much decided that it is about time for me to end my love affair with my lip ring. It doesn't look good anymore, it doesn't make me feel good anymore and it's about time that I bite the bullet and do it. It seems like a good a time as any. It'll be a big step but I'm pretty sure that it'll be worth it. I'm wearing a small ring in it at the moment to hopefully reduce the size of the hole somewhat before I take it out completely.
What an end of an era.June 22nd 2006
Ughhh... this is weird. I was forever touching my lip or running my tongue or teeth over the back of the ring/stud and now all I can feel is skin. I was walking home and I reached up to my lip and there was nothing there and I felt a sense of loss and I didn't like it. I spoke to my mum earlier and I was telling her how strange it felt. I'm not enjoying this change at all.One morning I woke up and looked in the mirror and didn't like what I saw. Fair enough, you might be thinking, everyone has those kinds of days. And yes, it wasn't the first time I'd seen it. It wasn't long after I had my nostril pierced so I had a little diagonal line of titanium across my face but the novelty wore off very quickly. I decided it'd be a good idea to get a stud for my lip. Considering I'd been wearing a ring for nearly a year, it was a bit of a big change. When I took my lip ring out to replace it, I looked at myself properly. Could I see myself without the piercing? To cut a long story short, the answer was obviously yes. I wore a 1.6mm labret stud with a 3mm ball on for a couple of weeks but today something told me it had to go.
It's a complete blow. A shock to the system, a break in routine and a loss of safety. My seamless ring would be constantly spun through my lip when nervous and my tongue always managed to explore the back of the labret stud. It was a safety barrier. It had been there when I was really low and as bizarre as it sounds, it got me through some tough times. Just knowing that I was a little different to the next person and knowing that I had something that made me feel good about myself was what kept me going. But now all there is is a pink hole on the bottom left side of my lip and a little fleshy hole on the inside.
July 4th 2006
The vertical labret has come out after only being in for week. It was just so wonky. This constant removal of facial piercings is really taking it's toll on me and it's not making me feel too good about myself.My initial experience of retiring was seemingly a "do it or maim your ear" situation which involved a piercing gun � yeah, I know, awful � and cheap sub-standard steel jewellery � yes, I know! � so that didn't bother me as much. Still, it was a difficult situation but I think it was because I had spent money on something that was gone, just like that. The second experience was to do with my stretched lobes where again I had not much choice in the matter, though they were relatively healthy piercings. Another lobe was the next to go, purely because again it was gunned � I'm apparently glutton for punishment � and ended up not looking particularly happy.
It's funny how prominently you can remember drunken conversations. I can remember a conversation I had in Penrith in February just like it was yesterday. Amy and I had gone to Laura's IAM meet and we ended up in a local pub with some of Laura's friends. I got talking to a lovely lady called Emma about modification and the likes and some of the things she said to me were the wisest words I've heard in my life. She told me that it seemed like I was hiding behind my piercings and that wasn't how it's supposed to be. Thinking back, I knew she was right. At the time I didn't think much of it but now it's 100% true. I felt that I should do something a little more constructive than what I was doing and that piercings would be that way for me. It worked for a while and on the whole it still is completely valid, but it just made me think.
Being a member of IAM and knowing a few people who have retired piercings, it never seems like much of a big deal. I'm sure there are people who have retired piercings for various reasons and not batted and eyelid, whereas people begrudgingly have had to take them out for work or other reasons and still not been happy, but got over it. I presume that if it affects different people in different ways and obviously the type of piercing and the reasoning behind the retirement would affect the reaction.
Retiring piercings, especially facial are going to have a big impact on how you see yourself. You're going to feel like it's a big part of your life missing but it isn't. A lot of modifications are easily re-done so it's not as if it's a permanent change. The only thing that I can really say is that it gets better. I often find old pictures of my lip ring and I miss how it looked but I feel a lot better within myself for trying something different and getting rid of my comfort barrier and being ok with the result.
Another article you should probably check out about is this one by Myke (IAM: Purpendicular) for a different persons account of retiring and what it meant to him.