Always On Display

Day 2. Since I wrote about tattoos last week, I guess I'll go into piercings?

I love piercings. I didn't always...well, I at least always liked the idea of them. I was terrified of needles though. I remember almost passing out just getting my ears pierced when I was like 13.

I got my first piercings when I was like 2 or 3 or something. Ears, of course. To date, I've had...24 piercings? I think that's right. I'm down to 14, but I usually only have jewelry in some of them. The ear piercings I have left may never close.

So how did I go from being terrified of needles to being poked that many times? I'm one of those people that tends to confront their fears. Plus I always thought piercings were pretty freaking cool. Still do, but my future employers, whoever they may be, are very, very unlikely to think so as well. By the time I finished high school, I had five regular ear piercings, a nose ring (a hoop even, not some stupid stud), an industrial barbell, and a navel ring. Freshman year of college, I got my tongue pierced, and two helix piercings in one ear (for a spiral). That spring I took out my nose ring, and the next fall I lost one of the helix piercings playing rugby. Rugby then kept me from getting pierced again for years.

Just before I finished college, I got three more piercings, including a septum ring, which is one of my favorite piercings to date. That summer, I got four dermals--two on my sternum, and one in front of each ear. One dermal from my sternum was torn out at Warped tour (I didn't notice until much later, and eventually had it replaced). I also got a conch piercing in one ear, and repierced the lost helix. That winter, I got my tongue web pierced, though I took it out a few weeks later...the barbell I had originally had come out, and the hoop I replaced with with kept catching on my tongue ring. I would love to get it redone and see if I can keep a bar in it.

Another fun thing about piercings? Gauging. I love gauging mine. The lower two piercings in each of my ears have been stretched up a few times (then I'd take them out, and have to gauge them again later...). I also gauged my tongue ring up quite a bit, but stopped because the jewelry that's any bigger than what I have has weird threading and I don't want to deal with that.

Piercings are great because they're so dynamic. You can pretty much pierce anything. And today there's so many options for jewelry. Plus, piercings aren't permanent. Yes, you'll likely have a scar after you take your jewelry out, but unless it's in the middle of your face it's usually not very noticeable (and even then, it's usually small). There's certainly drawbacks to piercings as well: they can be more work to maintain, during and after healing, you have to consider how easily jewelry will catch on things, what employers (or parents) will think, etc.

Piercings are like puppies...they're a ton of fun, and can look pretty cool, but you can't forget that they're a responsibility too.