Piercing my illusions

I pierced my navel 13 years ago when I was 25 years old.

I had just been dumped by my long-time boyfriend. I had cried off a good ten pounds of excess weight, was working out like a mad woman and was in the best shape of my life.

It was a painful but exhilarating way of confirming my emancipation. “I am hot. I am fearless. I am embarking on the next chapter of my life.”

I removed my navel piercing almost three years ago when, almost six months into my pregnancy, I glanced down and realized that it had inexplicably migrated halfway around my back.

Apparently that was my body’s way of saying, “You are not hot. You are a mom. You are embarking on the next chapter of your life.”

I pierced my nose six and a half years ago and walked down the aisle for my wedding sporting a beautiful emerald nose-ring. I adored that nose ring and I was sad when two and a half years later a minor infection necessitated its removal prior to an extended tour of south-east Asia.

Later that year we had a party for my 35th birthday. The day after, hungover and gripped with melancholy, I remember driving around teary-eyed searching for a place that would re-pierce my nose and, I imagined, restore my youth in one fell swoop.

I remember how humiliated I was when I finally found such a place and, short of cash, was sent home by a smirking teen-aged hipster who didn't take credit cards.

Only my ears are pierced today and sometimes I feel sad about that. I miss my piercings, the way they made me feel. I miss the little thrill I felt when I caught a glimpse of them in the mirror and I even miss the nervous anticipation and ultimately the pain that completed the commitment.

In retrospect it was a good thing that my plastic was too bourgeois for the piercing place I found on my 35th birthday. I got pregnant with Graham just a few months later and pairing a nose piercing with a grabby baby/ toddler is beyond my imagining. I can't tell you how often over the last few years I've physically winced just imagining what could have been.

But when I see fellow mommies with pierced noses, I am filled with a mixture of awe, envy and admiration. "I used to be a member of that club", I want to tell them. And I will be a member again when I am certain there will be no more little hands around to make me regret my decision.

But I will never again pierce my navel. I don't want to deal with the six months of recovery that I endured the first time and, as difficult as it is to accept sometimes, at 38 years of age, with one pregnancy behind me and another hopefully in the future, that ship has long sailed.

And so I will forever have to live with the fact that it looks like this now.

 

Yes, there's a rather prominent hole at the top of my belly button and I’m aware that it’s not very attractive. It's virtually certain that my navel would look better today if I had never, ever bothered piercing it in the first place.

But I don’t care.

My navel will never look like it did when I was 25 years old and years away from pregnancy and motherhood anyway, and I kinda like that ugly little hole: it reminds me of a time when I was a true diva - wild and free and happily deluded that my body was more decorative than functional.

Comments

[kittenpie]

I never did the navel thing, knowing one day I'd want to be a mother and that I'd never show it anyhow - even when my stomach was nice and flat, I was always one to keep it under wraps.

But I did have the nose pin, and am a poster girl for how these things can go wrong. My nose pin, a nice little sterling one, deposited silver in my skin when I had a small infection, leaving a blue mark behind after I let the hole close. After some ten years of having people point out that I had something on my nose I might want to wipe off, I finally saw a plastic surgeon and had a small piece of my nose sliced out to remove the blue shadow. No fun.

So now I look on piercings as a thing to be done with caution - because both my result and yours are not what we were hoping for, and you just never know, so you better be prepared to live with the possibilities, right? Which is the sort of thing I'll tell my daughter some day when she brings up piercings. Again.

[geena]

I pierced my navel 3 months after i had given birth to my youngest child. Ya i didn't have the flat tummy or perfect body usually associated with navel piercings, but i wanted one and i did it. I loved how it made me feel, even though the only person to see it were my kids and hubby lol. It took forever to heal though, i ended up having to wear 14kt gold in it because i was allergic to everything else. Even with that it would still act up from time to time. After the last time it was oozing something and i felt a hardened lump in it, i took it out. It felt so strange to not have it in anymore, and i still look at it from time to time expecting it to be there and miss it cause its not, but i probably wouldn't do it again...i'll just stick to my tattoos

[Kat]

I have pierced my naval twice in the past but took mine out during pregnancy. Unlike yours, mine did not move but instead started to produce a gaping hole in my stomach. My bellybutton now looks like it has a foreskin - kind of fun to pull out after you have had quite a few at a party!

I have longed to have my nose pierced - longed and longed. I still have my tongue pierced to this day. many people ask me when I am going to take it out and I just smile and say "Why?"

Call me when you join that club again - I may just join you - credit cards in hand!!

[chelle]

Oooo to the good old days!! I never had my belly button pierced but I did have my eyebrow, nose and tongue pierced. I still have funky ear piercing but that is all that is left :( I so want to get my eyebrow done again ... hmmmmmmmmmmm

[sky girl]

I got my nose pierced in my early twenties. After a few years, I thought I let it grow in until about 5 years ago when I discovered that the hole had never grown over. I've been wearing a nosering (more of a nosedot actually) since then. I heart it.

[Kami]

It still looks MILES better than mine and I have never had it pierced. A friend suggested that mine would look better pierced but I would just a soon no one look at it at all!

:-)

[SciFi Dad]

When I met my wife, I had the following piercings:
1 in right lobe
3 in left lobe
1 in left helix (common outer cartilage piercing)
1 in left lower Crus antehelicis

(ref: http://altmed.iatp.org.ua/ear/anatom_ear.htm - like I actually knew what those last two were called, people)

Slowly, I removed them (starting with the cartilage ones first) until I was left with just the one in the left ear. One day I stopped wearing that too, and haven't had any since.

[gina sprenger]

I don't think it looks that bad. You are in great shape.

[Angie @ Keep Believing]

I have a tattoo high on my right thigh. It is symbolic of my "hip" days, too - my concert going days, my maiden name and my carefree lifestyle. I don't yearn for much of it anymore, but when I see the tattoo, I am reminded of it. When I see others see my tattoo, I notice their judgemental glances.

KEEP BELIEVING

[Emily R]

Yeah, but can we talk about how great your abs look?

[Whitenoise]

I never got that whole piercing/tattoo thing. Sometimes things look elegant through simplicity, and IMO, the female body is one of those things. When you try to jazz-up something that's already beautiful- you often risk detracting from that beauty.

[Erin]

I am almost 40 with two small kids and I have my nose pierced and there is a club but I am almost sad for this. I got my nose pierced years before it was cool. I did it to be different and now people think I'm part of some club. Humbug... When I'm forty I'm going to get a tatoo. Unfortunately that has become cool too. I've been planning it for the last 20 years. I guess I'll get it somewhere private. Ya, and your abs are totally am embarassment for me, 'cause mine are in there somewhere under much gelatinous mommyhood. Yours still shine!

[Nap Warden]

I never did the piercing, or the tattoo thing...Maybe somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I would someday be a Mom;)

[Angella]

I have had my nose pierced THREE TIMES. It kept getting infected, and I would give up. Only to pierce it again.

I still have a scar on my nose, and still dream of having it done again. I just love them.

[Painted Maypole]

i just remember when 2 of my college roommates pierced their navels, and sat on the couch with their shirts hiked up, moaning. my other roommate and I would walk by, point, and laugh. (nice, I know) I have two holes in one ear. that's as daring as I got.

[nomotherearth]

I pierced the top of my ear with a friend in university. It looked cool, but it hurt too much and it interfered with sleeping. So now I only have the regular ear piercings. I guess I will never run with the cool kids - I can only admire from afar.

[rachel]

I have one of those naval holes too :-)
I pierced mine when I was 18 and then took it out at 25 when I was 6 months pregnant with the first one :-)
I adore you dear one.

[Izzy]

I can relate, as evidenced by the unadorned hole in my right nostril, also pierced when I was about 24 or 25. Now you can get magnetic studs, which are a bit like cheating, but since I already have the hole, I should probably take that route instead of trying to reopen the old hole as it's horribly, terribly, excruciatingly painful!!!!