63. Get my ears pierced

Completed: November 24, 2011

When I was growing up, I never had a desire to get my ears pierced. All through elementary school, I didn’t care to have it done. Elise had her ears pierced when we were quite young. She was about 10 or 12. I remember sitting in the waiting area of my mom’s hair salon. Elise promising Joe that she would get both ears pierced no matter how much the first one hurt. Then there was the loud sound of the piercing gun; then there were screams, then some tears and then a combination of the two. I remember distinctly going all the way home with Elise crying her eyes out. It was traumatizing…

And from that point forward, I was afraid of piercings.

I went through high school and a lot of people didn’t notice that I didn’t have my ears pierced, and it never bothered me that I didn’t. People who did notice were a bit awestruck by it and I’m sure some of them thought it had something to do with my strong religious beliefs… But it actually had a lot to do with a childhood trauma.

My sister went to Calgary, Alberta to live for a while. And when she came back she was 100% out of her tomboy phase. Which meant really cute outfits… with really cute earrings. That I couldn’t wear. There were so many times where I looked at a pair of earrings and longed to pair then with a certain shirt, or dress, or scarf. Oh, I wanted them so bad. But I was so scared of the actual piercing that I didn’t go for about a year.

After my best friend was married and I didn’t have great earrings to show off with my tied back hair, I told Elise that I wanted to get them done. That way, I could wear earrings to her wedding (whenever it may be…)

Elise and I decided to spontaneously have a sister movie night. Just as we were about to walk out the door, Elise said to me “Hey, why don’t we go get your ears pierced tonight?” And I was like, “Ha………… Okay.” Elise had spotted a place next to our nail salon that does tattoos and piercings. A lot of people, since I’ve had it done, have asked me why I decided on a tattoo parlor over Claire’s or some other store in the mall. My answer would be that because this is something that could seriously damage my ears, give me a really disgusting infection and even just hurt a lot more than necessary, I wanted someone who does this as a living to do it for me. Not someone who had a crash course on it after  learning how to sell cheap jewelry to pre-teen girls.

Unfortunately, our nail salon is in one of the sketchiest plazas in my town. Which did make me a little nervous about my decision to “see a professional in the field.” (You’d think I was picking a doctor or something…) But I walked into the parlor and said to the tatted and pierced employee. “I, uh… want to get my ears pierced?” She could definitely tell I was nervous because I could not stop talking. It was just a never-ending fountain of words coming from my mouth. My sister obviously thought it was hilarious. Then Lexie, the name I just made up for her, cleaned my ears, and placed a black dot on my ear lobes. She asked me if I liked where they were placed. I looked in the mirror and I was never more terrified in my life. Lexie then took a piercing needle (see below) and shoved it through my ear. It was just a bit of a pinch but because she was piercing on my ear, I could actually hear the flesh tearing. That was special…

Then Lexie left the needle hanging in my ear for 30 seconds, which was the weirdest feeling EVER. She did that while she got my new extremely fashionable (ha…) earrings all set to put in my ears. (See photo below.) Then Lexie did the other ear and it was done. Elise and I left and went to the movie. Throughout the entire movie all I could feel was my heart beating in my ears. It was actually more painful after the piercing than during. I honestly didn’t think that that would be how it worked out but… I guess having an inanimate object hanging out through a piece of flesh would hurt a little bit more than it going in. The initial shock wouldn’t hurt as much. (This is coming from Dr. Bee, who has an official degree from Grey’s Anatomy school of Medical Science.)

Since that night, Elise bought me a pair of lovely Swarovski earrings. Plain in design, but they are honestly so pretty and I love them so much. I just started wearing them. I was really excited that my ears were finally ready to take on a new set of earrings, so I decided on valentine’s day that I was going to spice up my life and wear my cute new earrings. I also decided that I would change my earrings for the first time by myself… Yeah, I had to call Elise at work to talk me through it because it was so difficult! She laughed at me. And told me to put my ugly earrings back in.

It has been great fun! Now I am on the hunt for the perfect pair of feather earrings. (I am very picky!) Let me know where you have found yours!