Beyond the Surface

If talk of boobs and nipples makes you queezy, stop here. If talk of MY boobs and/or nipples is TMI, don’t read on. :)

I got my nipples pierced last week. I’m such a slut!

Now that that’s out of the way, it sounds wild and crazy but really, it wasn’t so much so. I’ve wanted to get them pierced for a long time now. Piercings are sexy, IMO and pierced nipples are all the more so. So much so, even that once upon a time, when we were young and dumb (18 and 19), Ryan sent me a bunch of pictures from his boat and made sure to include one of his friend’s nipple rings. I later met the friend and I love him dearly - but the image of his nipples was all I knew for many years. :)

(I’m sipping a spiced pumpkin latte from Starbucks at this moment. It sounded so warm and autumny. I’m one of those that makes wassail from October 20th through New Years Eve. But OMG this shit is nasty. I mean… I’m a coffee LOVER - notta hatah… but this shit is like licking the bottom of my son’s tennis shoe. I HAVE to drink it because I spent half my life savings on it and it took a lot for me to decide to partake in caffeine this morning but DA-YUHM. OMGYUCKOMGYUCKOMGYUCK.)

So I had Ethan. And then a few years later I wanted another one. Trust me, that passed. But until it did, I didn’t want to get my nipples pierced for fear of it affecting breast feeding. So I didnt. Then I thought I wanted a boob job. Having had a kid and all. But then. That passed too. It’s been 7 years now and I love my boobs again. But in the mean time, I didn’t want to get them pierced, have to take them out for the boob job and then have to get my new boobs re-pierced. So I didnt.

With kids and boob jobs out of the way, the road was clear for piercing. For a while, Ryan and I had an agreement about when and under what circumstances I would get them done… but it wound up that wasn’t in the cards either. So I was finally free to do them when I wanted to. I came very close, several time in the last few months to just going to a local place on lunch to get it done. I even started driving there one day before I realized I had no idea where I was going. That tends to put a damper on the whole ‘arriving at the destination’ thing.

So when Me invited me out to a joint nipple piercing on a whim, I agreed heartily. That leads me to symbolism of my piercings. I’m glad that I got to go with Me. Although our relationship has fluctuated between gray areas at times, we’ve gone months between talking sometimes and we’ve only known each other a few years, I count her among the small circle of my closest friends. I would tell her anything and I would do anything for her and I know that I could trust her to be there for me too. In a world were there are so few, I consider her an equal. (dear GOD, that sounds conceited… but hey.. sigh) When I got my tattoo, although it didnt symbolize our friendship in any way and was a very personal tattoo, I did it with my best friend who also got a tattoo inthe same place and it has always reminded me of her after that. These new piercings have that same kind of meaning. No, they arent a friendship commitment of any sort… but we did them together and it’s an experience to remember.

The other symbolism, to me, is freedom. I’m not tied down to the commitment of having more kids or needing to make my shape conform to some standard that I thought they had to be and I’m not longer bound by the need to be dominated. Although ring piercings typically represent slavery of some sort in modern symbolism, in my soul, these piercings represent the lack thereof. I own myself and these are my commitment to myself to own myself. For always. Yes, I still have commitments to my child and my relationship and they are dear to me and I will always honor them. But not at the risk of losing myself.

And finally, I got these rings on the tail end of an initiation of sorts. The smoke is finally clearing and I’m a changed person. The rings served to put me back into my body, first of all and second of all, to seal me there with all of these new changes. They are a symbol of this metamorphosis.

I stripped out of my clothes last night and walked into the bathroom to get the sea salt in order to soak them. As I approached the large mirror that stretches the length of the counter, I watched my hips sway and my gaze travelled up, past my breasts and up to my face and it struck me that having my nipples pierced was a given. It’s as though something was always missing without it and finally it’s not missing anymore. I don’t know if that’s because I’ve just wanted them for so long… or if maybe I wanted them so much BECAUSE it felt wrong not to have them.

But I have them and I love them. When they ache because I make them wear a bra at work, it’s a satisfying ache that makes me smile a secret smile. When I catch them on something or bump them into something, there is the immediate sharp intake of breath and then the ache that makes me smile. Things I’ve always done, like the way I put my deodorant on, take on a new outlook. Who knew that deodorant could be eye opening and pleasurable in that painful tingly sort of way?! When I take care of them, it’s like taking care of a child. Very carefully, delicately and thoroughly, with so much love. I enjoy the experience of having them.