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By Bianca Jones
August 5, 2019: I walked into Claire’s and got my first piercing. A couple months before my 18th birthday I, a piercing virgin, asked my mother if I could get my first piercing. She said yes. My whole life I had known my mother did not wish me to have piercings, naturally making me want them more. So the Friday afternoon that I asked her while we were driving in her dying Jeep Liberty, I was shocked to hear her say, “I guess if you want to, you can get your ears pierced.”
In shock, I heard myself reply, “Mom, can I have that for my birthday?” There was a long silence as we turned left onto 28th Street from the Costco parking lot. I sipped my Starbucks Pink Drink. Mom sighed and passed a crawling beige sedan, the make of which eludes me.
“Fine.” she shrugged.
I was in shock.
Fast forward to my birthday and I am still in shock as I walk into the small jewelry and piercing store in the mall. Kailee greets me as I walk in the store. Now I am nervous. I never thought I was even going to be allowed to do it so I start panicking.
I have successfully avoided non-medical needles for 18 years. I reminisce.
You could just walk out of this store and not pierce my ears. I shift my body weight, and nervously play with the oddly colored blue headband in front of me.
Around me I register a conversation around piercing my ears with gold or silver.
My grandma demands gold.
Why is my grandma here? I’m her only granddaughter. She goes most of the places that I go, and has opinions on most of the things that I do. I don’t really mind it. After all, I am her only granddaughter. It’s not like I’m competing for her attention.
I’m sitting in a chair and Kailee is smiling at me. I think we’re talking about what type of earrings I like. I tell her studs.
Bianca from the future here you like dangly earrings and hoops. You like hoops a lot.
Yeah but the bigger the hoop, the bigger the h -
Don’t even think about finishing that abominable sentence. You like hoops. Big hoops. Sparkly hoops.
Kailee is telling me about cleaning my ears twice a day. Run of the mill piercing stuff really. I know that now. I’m thinking to myself. “You dumbass! You hate needles, why are you willingly poking a hole in your body with one?”
It’s too late I’ve told Kailee I like the placement of the earring and she’s getting the gun out. She’s really quick too. The gun is already loaded and at my ear. I register her telling me “tiny pinch.” Then a light pinch.
I have a little peridot stone for August and I’m in love with it. Instantly feeling the pinch the anxiety that ramped up in the last five minutes disappeared.
I find myself bouncing in my seat excited for the next pinch.
It comes. It’s cathartic. I’m excited still as she reminds me of what I have to do to keep my ears clean and I solemnly nod and agree. I also promise my mother no more piercings.
Over the next few months I completed my first semester of college. My piercings served as a distraction as I obsessively cleaned, twisted, and eventually changed them. I did everything I was supposed to do.
November – November was hard. I had consistent relationship inconsistencies. I told myself it didn’t matter, but I could feel my anxiety rising. I eventually started seeing a therapist. I liked Tracy, she was nice. But she told me to journal, and I don’t journal. I don’t mean not well, I mean like not at all. I saw her until May of 2020. She said you’re doing great! I think we’ve resolved a lot of your anxiety, and you don’t have to see me anymore. I guess that’s what happens when you lie to your therapist.
December was the holiday season, which, as a worker in retail, is a constant source of anxiety. Mid-January was the first time I heard the term Coronavirus and I didn’t even give it a second thought. March 9 was the last day I went to work pre-lockdown.
April – May. Online School. More Anxiety. The longer the pandemic stretched out the more stressed I was. What happened if my grandma got sick? What happened if my nephews got sick? I start looking at piercing ideas. I tell my mom it’s because I like the aesthetic.
June-July. Classes are finished and I start working again. I’m working an average of 38 hours a week. I’m preparing to go to class in the fall, and am bombarded by anxious thoughts yet again. I save a picture to my recently created Pinterest board with how I now know I want my ears to look like when I’m done piercing.
Yes, I’m going to get another piercing.
August. August 5, 2020. After a long conversation with my mom, and my grandma, I am again walking into Claire’s yet again to get a second piercing. I have no qualms this day. This day, I know exactly what I want. I don’t know which I’m more excited for, the piercing or the hole. Kailee is still here a welcome calming presence to the piercing experience.
I sit in the chair and I wait for the pinch. No nerves this time, just calm.
First pinch. Instant cathartic tension release. I feel literal months of anxiety leave my body, almost as if it flows out the new hole in my skin.
Next pinch comes quickly after the first. This pinch stung more, but I liked the burn. I didn’t think there was much more tension left in my body after that first pinch, but after I felt the second pinch, I knew that now all that tension was gone.
September-October. I started in-person classes. In the middle of a global pandemic. And election season. Anxiety doesn’t even begin to cover it. At first everything is okay, but then they cancelled fall break. Risk of travel brings exposure, they said. It makes sense, but I’m really missing that fall break.
November - November 3. I sit at my kitchen counter twisting my newest piercing like you’re supposed to, watching the states flip from red to blue and vice-versa. The ultimate lack of control. I like twisting my piercings though, it’s a controlled source of pain I find cathartic.
November 6 - The semester wraps up, and my holiday season ramps up. I can feel the anxiety rising as test and final presentations dates loom. I’m not overwhelmed though just a little numb. I’m looking forward to a break and rest. My relationship inconsistencies have become more predictably tragic. It’s less stressful when you can predict it. I think he has a girlfriend but I don’t really know. We don’t talk anymore.
I sit in class and do a homework assignment while drinking a shake. I haven’t had breakfast in months. My classmate to my right is looking at the polling results from the election that drags on. Distracted I flip to my open browser that is open to my Pinterest board of piercings.
I twist my piercings again, a miniature but fleeting tension release.
As soon as the feeling vanishes, I miss it. I miss the physical feeling of tension flowing out my skin. I think I might even miss Kailee. Someone behind me coughs behind their mask, and I am brought back to the classroom. I think my professor is talking about the qualifications of elders.
I think I’ll get another piercing.
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