How I Thought I'd Die, Or, Getting My Ears Pierced at 24

Originally written January 7, 2019. I have a confession*. I'm 24 years old and I just got my ears pierced. Like for the first time this past October. I decided to get it done for my birthday this year, and yes, I'm in my 20's.

Now most people get theirs done as a baby and don't remember it unless they've had more piercings done later in life. My mom wanted to give me the choice of when I wanted mine done, not knowing I'd grow up to be deathly terrified of needles. And pain. And long healing processes. I'd been putting it off for years. I even had an impressive collection of clip on earrings of every kind from giant feathers, to the ugliest rainbow disks (I apologize to humanity for my short lived but well documented rainbow everything phase), to neck length everything else- hoops, hearts, guitar picks, I had it. Understated was not in my vocabulary. Even the small ones included blue glow in the dark monkey head earrings.

I grew out of that middle school earrings phase somewhere in my early 20's when I transitioned to more adult looking clip ons (is that an oxymoron or what?!), somewhat understated clips and magnet ones that could definitely pass for the real thing. But after the 497026th day of my ears coming home more sore than my feet after work, I decided it was time.

I found a local piercer that does piercings exclusively. I was absolutely not going to Claire's (stay away from piercing guns!) and you wouldn't catch me in a tattoo parlor for anything. She had a cute little studio in a salon suite and made me comfortable as she told me what was going to happen and what kind of needle she was going to use and what kind of pain I'd feel. I think I made her repeat it 4 or 5 times just to stall as I gripped my mom's hand tighter every time (did I mention I'm 24?)

Going in terrified and coming out with these tiny studs!

Well, needless to say, I didn't die, my ears didn't fall off, and I lived, albeit with two holes in my ears, to tell about it. I was very diligent about cleaning with the saline rinse and though I had my share of "oh no, they're infected and I'm going to be scarred for life/die" moments, everything else went pretty smoothly.

My mom got her ears repierced while we were there. We have matching titanium studs!

I changed into real earrings at the 6 week mark, just before Christmas, and now I'm able to wear all my new studs! A whole new world of Christmas and birthday presents has opened up (BTW, good job on Christmas, Andrew) and all my money from work lately has been going into replacing earrings- from everything hideous in my clip on drawer to everything that my silver heart box can hold. I might be running out of room already, oops!

My Christmas present from Andrew. Didn't he do so good?!

So if there's anyone wondering if now's the time to finally get that thing done that you've been scared to do, I say do it. I put myself though so much pain for so many years with clips and magnets (seriously, ouch), and my fear wasn't worth putting it off for so long. Every new pair of earrings I buy now will be a reminder of when I conquered my fear - and I'm so happy I did!

*Well, two confessions really. One, I'm still writing 2018 on everything, like just now, and the other, well read the blog post. Isn't that what you're here for?