What I Did Today: A Somewhat Lengthy Diatribe-like Rant on Piercings

Disclaimer: This post is in no way meant to be judgmental or vindictive in any way, shape or form to those of you who have piercings. I think earrings are generally speaking very pretty. This is simply what I experienced in my life today.

Remember the girl who I lasted blogged about? The one named Mercy Szobody? She had this idea a few days ago. An idea for my birthday present. She wanted to go get my ears pierced for my birthday.

Yes, it's true, I'm 18 going on 19 without pierced ears. Many people when they hear this statement are shocked, confused, intrigued... But it is very true. Never really wanted earrings. It only ever occurred to me as a possibility about once every six or seven years in my life. Just doesn't really seem like a Kathryn sort of a dealio.

Well today Mercy and another friend Abby went to get a second ear piercing. And I was called to come along for my first piercings.

Fear and trepidation pierced (yes, PIERCED) my heart. Not only fear about the pain (though a great large amount of that was certainly caused by the pain aspect). But it felt so irreversible. Like a violation of my body. Something unnecessary. Something that I could very happily live without. The rebel against culture which is at times quite strong reared up in me - who ever said earrings were pretty? Who ever decided that puncturing a hole through your ear and sticking metal in it was smart? Is there a Biblical basis for having earrings? It's true and cannot be denied - I care a whole lot less about clothes and appearance and personal hygiene than the average girl of the developed world. It's just not who I am. Earrings did not feel like me. They felt very NOT me.

Not only that, but they feel vain. I feel like I would be saying I'm not pretty enough, so much so that I need to puncture holes in my earlobes to enhance my beauty. It's totally not necessary for life. It's an extra adornment, an extra thing to worry about. What would be my motives in getting my ears pierced? I could come up with absolutely no admirable motives other than curiosity to see what I would look like which is only half admirable since curiosity is generally speaking an admirable thing. Peer pressure wasn't really a motive. I can't say Mercy didn't pressure me, but at the same time, I did not feel overly pressured and I certainly wouldn't have had a problem saying no to her.

Last night, Mercy blithely bid me goodnight with a, "Tomorrow at 5:00 PM, you, me and Abby to the piercing shop!"

Until that point, it hadn't really seemed real. I had been in denial. It was something in the future, but the very far away future. Not anymore. A pit of unheard of fear, doom and uncertainty began to brew in my stomach like poison. The night before, I had sent out several emails titled: URGENT!!! to several friends, all to my friends who remain pierce-less. Each and every one of them (two in total, that is) encouraged me to do so. I prayed about it. I journaled about it. I went to the cemetery today, a beautiful cemetery overlooking Albertville and mulled over it until I could mull no more. On my way home, I walked past a little shop with big glaring words that read "BODY PIERCINGS." The words haunted me all the way back home.

4:50 this afternoon - I walked downstairs and found Mercy. As evidenced by my last blog post, I really love Mercy, but it took a significant amount of self-control not to run the opposite direction. I gulped, continued on, and said hello to her. A few minutes later found us walking down the road on our way to the Bijoutier.

Not too long ago at all, there was a bijoutier here in Albertville who was robbed and then killed. Happens to be right next door to the place Mercy was taking me too. Cool. Chances of the same thing happening to us while we were there? Pretty darn high in my mind.

My palms were sweating. My stomach was all flip-flopping and acting extremely abnormally. My head throbbed. Over and over and over again I told myself, Kathryn. It's okay. If you really detest it, then you just take them out and let the skin grow back again. Not a big deal. Settle down. It'll be okay.

In Hebrews 11-12, it recounts a great many heroes of the faith and talks about the cloud of witnesses that we are surrounded by. In my mind, I systematically went through all the incredible women of faith that I know and thought especially about all of the ones with pierced ears, and thought to myself wow, that could be me. It consoled me a bit. A very tiny little bit. Quickly reversed, though, whenever I remembered an incredible woman of faith SANS piercings and thought, "THAT COULD ALSO BE ME."

We arrived. A French woman came out from a room in the back. With long blonde hair and with earrings. I noticed the latter element immediately. I also noticed right away that I positively did not like how her earrings looked. I couldn't take my eyes off of them, even when she was talking to us. They were ugly. I imagined what it must have been like to be her poor ear when she got them pierced. So unsuspecting. So innocent. And then BAM! A demoralizing shock of horrible pain just at the softest most squishy part of the ear. Could I really do something that cruel, that horrible, that unfair to my ears?

There was a mirror on the wall. I turned and I saw my face. My 100% natural ears. And I liked them that way. I really liked them that way. I saw myself in the mirror and I loved the way I looked (minus the utter trepidation blatantly displayed across my face, that is).

First Mercy went.

Then Abby.

Next, me.

I sat in the chair. It was as if my life flashed before my eyes. All my years of pierce-free life. All 19 of them. Beautiful wonderful years.

The gun was in her hand. Dark blue and plastic. A weapon of destruction. She approached my ear. It took every ounce of self-control and concentration to stay sitting in that seat of doom.

She tightened her grip on the trigger. I felt the pressure closing in. Then, BAM.

I felt the metal piercing through every single little cell. The pain, dubbed by my peers to allegedly be "only a little pinch that you can barely feel" was more than barely felt. It was quite the contrary to barely felt. It was completely felt. The pain shot in all directions, up my ear, in my ear, the anguish was insurmountable. Not only the physical anguish, but the mental and emotional anguish of WHAT HAVE I JUST DONE?! SHALL I REGRET THIS FOREVER? IS THIS IRREVERSIBLE?! I overdramatize not. This is truly exactly how I experienced this occasion.

Well ear number two was not any better.

And then. And then I looked in the mirror. And the very first thing I thought (and said too) was, "I look positively barbaric. I LOOK LIKE A BARBARIAN. THIS IS HORRIBLE. I WOULD PREFER TO WALK THROUGH LIFE LOOKING NON-BARBARIC." I honest to goodness thought that it looked terrible and that I looked like a barbarian. I kid you not. I looked, or rather LOOK like a Barbarian and that is that.

The next hour Kathryn went through a major identity crisis. My body was still sweating, shaking, unnaturally disordered. Poor Mercy and Abby had to deal with it, and had to try to figure out how to distract/console/talk some reason into my positively erratic body. I didn't feel like Kathryn Wong anymore. I didn't even feel human anymore. I felt like a disembodied, barbaric spirit with suffering ears. I felt vain for thinking that somehow I could or should or ought to enhance myself with metal studs. How absurd. They tried everything. They tried jokes, funny stories, feeding me chocolate pastries. All to no avail. I could barely turn my head. I couldn't relax. I couldn't do anything but lament the loss of my former self.

To make things even worse, I have to clean them. Daily. 2-3 times per day these next few weeks. Anyone who knows me will know that hygiene, particularly when it comes to mundane details such as this, is simply not my strong point. Try as I might, it's simply never been a priority for me. When the fact that I have to wash them that often hit me, I immediately envisioned (and to this moment still envision) both of my ears getting so horribly infected that an ear amputation is the only plausible solution to the problem. Mercy and Abby told me that was utterly ridiculous and that they certainly had never heard of such a thing. I feel it is a very possible reality in my near future.

I have more to say on the subject, but I believe that shall suffice for now. I should like to say thank you ever so much to Mercy for such a nice, thoughtful, original birthday present. It definitely broadened my horizons. Pushed me out of my comfort zone. It was even harder than my first time skiing down a blue. I'm not likely to forget it. Indeed, it seems as if it shall stay with me forever.