Holey me

For my 27th birthday last month, I got my ear pierced. My friend Lindsey suggested that I tell the story of my eight "after-market holes" mentioned previously. So here we go.

As a child, getting my ears piereced was a rite of passage. In my family, we had to wait until we reached the ripe old age of 12 in order to be considered ready for such a life-altering event. It was just like all the other age-bound privileges: baptism at 8, ears pierced at 12, date at 16, vote and smoke at 18, drink at 21...wait, scratch those last two. Anyway, I was a very lucky girl, because I was basically best friends with my cousin Rachel, who is 20 days older than me. It was determined that we could go get our ears pierced together, and the appointed date fell at least several days before my 12th birthday. Scandalous.

In case you don't know or haven't figured it out, I grew up as a Mormon. My mom doesn't approve of body piercing, mainly because it is a desecration of your "holy temple." I have never understood, then, why it is okay to pierce earlobes--one time each--but nowhere else. My first "unapproved" piercing was my upper left ear cartilage. It was very popular at the time, and Rachel (the aforementioned cousin) had one. I tended to get my fashion cues from her (she lived in Lake Oswego and her dad was a lawyer, what would you expect?). I must have been 18, because I didn't need parental approval, and I think Rachel accompanied me to a very nice piercing place--or at least she recommended it. That's about all I remember.

I got a second piercing in each earlobe during my freshman--er, only year at BYU. At that time I was attached at the hip to another awesome cousin, Emily. I did this on a whim at a shop in the mall akin to Claire's where they offer free ear piercing with those horrid needle guns. When I got my ceremonious first piercings at the same type of place, I do not remember the pain being as intense as it was this time. Professional piercing by hand with a needle is SO much gentler.

Number 6 is my favorite: the road-trip-belly-button-piercing. Also during college, Emily and I took a trip to Montana to visit my newly-married sister. Her husband is from Great Falls, and one of the guys in our ward was as well. We stuffed ourselves into his old and tiny Subaru Justy and drove for 10 hours. March 18, 2000 I entered Tattoo York's in Great Falls, MT to experience navel piercing in a not-so-classy establishment. My sister didn't approve, but her husband came in and provided moral support. This was the least painful piercing of all, probably because it was fat, not cartilage. The best part of this story is that I took the following picture with Jed, the piercer, and sent it to my mother along with a very sincere letter saying that I had met the most wonderful guy and felt like he might be "the one" and on and on like this. It was so fun to wait for that phone call!
Next I had my tragus pierced in Las Vegas while attending my first Curves International convention in November 2003. My very good friend Wiyaka, who was one of my Curves employees at the time, got her belly button pierced too.

When I started selling Cookie Lee jewelry as a hobby in 2005, I took out the body jewelry in my ears, as they didn't coordinate well with fashion jewelry. Over time, the holes closed up, which is very disappointing to me. I took out my navel piercing a few months after getting pregnant...bet you can guess why. Although I put it back in one day--just for fun--when I was 8 or 9 months along. I could get it through just fine, but it looked a little silly. Now my "mommy belly" isn't fit for that kind of adornment anymore.

This leads us to hole #8, in my right helix, which you can read about here. Perhaps I'll have a really great tattoo story one of these days. But I'm still seeking the perfect image worthy of permanent ink.