Pierced Ears

So stress is making me do spur of the moment things again. I went shopping Saturday, and since I was in the mall getting some cards for upcoming birthdays/Mother's Day, etc., I swung by the accessories shop and had the second set of piercings in my ears redone. Just like that. Bam, snap, bottom on the chair, studs in the ears, no flinching. This lack of inhibition and forethought does not bode well for what's to come in the next few weeks of my life. When I get like this, all things become possible....

I've had this set of holes since my sophomore summer of college. I got them in Costa Rica, where it seemed every woman I saw had at least three sets of piercings per ear. I actually felt gauche with only one set of holes. I had a lot of little pairs of studs I like to wear, I was in a foreign country, I was stressed about the loss of somebody back home who was close to me, I was in the mall with a friend, and bam, snap, bottom on the chair, studs in the ears, no flinching, I had new piercings when I came back from Costa Rica that summer. I liked them then, and I still do.

There's no need to worry that I am about to launch into a manic body art phase in which I suddenly become one who will set off metal detectors. Two sets of studs in the ears is enough. It's bothered me for some time that the second set had closed up; one side had been pierced just a little too high, and it never did heal up properly. The girl at the store fixed that when she did this set, so I'm even now.

I almost feel like I got something back by having these put back in. That may be the most absurd sentence of all the absurd sentences I've ever typed. Pierced ears are hardly daring. Somehow though, I feel a little bit of that tico summer return, and right now, with all the stress that's crushing me on every side, I need a little of that confidence. I only wish I could actually get on a plane and lose myself in the multicolored shadows of San Jose or La Fortuna's cloud forest. Maybe the earrings can pierce the veil of memory enough so I can get by on that alone.