About a year and a half ago, I went with a friend so she could finally get her nipples pierced. No big deal there, I was just there for support. Support turned into getting a new piercing of my own, my 10g septum. I was proud, it was my first truly painful piercing experience. My eyes even watered a bit.
At A Glance Author Synner Contact Synner@bme.anon When N/A Shortly after the piercing healed, I decided I was going to go bigger. This was roughly two months into things, and everything had healed quite nicely. I took my first step, moving up from a 10g captive ring up to an 8g pincher. It slid right through, I couldn't even tell a difference. That must've been my own ignorance, because all of a sudden, it was like it was just pierced the day before; everyone asked me about it everywhere I went. Pride hit again, and I stopped hiding it. The piercing went from "my little secret" to "front-page news" in the course of a day. Within two weeks, everybody I knew had seen it; it wasn't a big deal anymore, so back in hiding it went. Two more weeks passed, and apparently two weeks happens to be just long enough for something to fade from memory. Someone noticed the metal shining, and there it was again, out and proud for all to see.
At this point, I'd been pierced for 3 months, and hadn't stretched in a month. It was time for another step. The metal 8g pincher came out, and was replaced with a 6g acrylic pincher. As is the usual routine with new jewelry, there was instant recognition everywhere I went, and the pride just kept building and building. I didn't have the option to keep this one a secret, the jewelry was too wide to tuck in, so I had to wear it down long enough to heal. Once it healed, it was replaced with a matching plug, solid black acrylic.
At this point, I got tired of having to change jewelry every time my mood changed. If I was out and decided that I wanted to show it off, I had to go home, change the jewelry, and go back out, looking (and feeling) like a totally different person. I knew at that point I had two options. I could go for another stretch, or I could step back down and hope things healed straight. I decided I wanted to see what smaller jewelry looked like, so I put the 8g back in. That was still too big for the look I wanted. I went back to the 10g. Even that still seemed too big. I tried a 12g. No, that was too big, too, I wanted it to look like a recent piercing. My plain 14 gauge seemed to be the only ring that looked right.
I stayed with small jewelry for about a month. A month was all the time I needed to realize that small jewelry just isn't for me. I started stretching for the rush, and it's hard to feel that rush when you keep going smaller and smaller. The 10 gauge went back in, and stayed for about a week. That's when things started to spiral out of control. The next week, it was back to the eight. The next week, it was back to the six. The next week, I found a six gauge teardrop captive that I fell in love with. I also found a six gauge septum tusk that I ALSO fell in love with. The next three months, it was a daily switch between the tusk and the teardrop.
Around the middle of last spring, I decided it was time to go bigger, but I had a dilemma. I had a job that required a professional appearance and constantly dealing with the public. I wanted to go bigger, but I couldn't reasonably keep a 4 gauge piece of jewelry tucked into my nose. Plugs felt too bulky, and trying to fit an o-ring onto a plug while it's in your nose is a task, to say the least. I realized if I wanted to go bigger, I'd have to use a double-flare tunnel to keep it from falling out in my sleep, which seems to happen with every piercing I've ever had. I started out with tunnels staying at my current size at the time, a six gauge. The 4 gauge flares didn't feel too bad, but it didn't exactly tickle. Regardless of the slight pain, the rush was back, and I felt great getting to a new size.
July hit, and with Independence Day, I decided to have a little independence celebration of my own. It was time for another milestone. By now I had adjusted to the feeling of taking the tunnel out and putting it back in, and it was no big deal. I thought going up one more size wouldn't affect me too terribly, so I went out and found a 4 gauge tunnel. It seemed to be made specially for my septum, there is hardly any excess metal to it. I went home, cleaned everything up, and prepared myself for what I knew would hurt more than anything up to this point.
I took out the 6 gauge, took a deep breath, and tried to put in the 4 gauge. I'm stressing the word TRIED. No matter what I did, I couldn't get the flares to slip through. After 10 minutes of struggling, I gave in. I put the 6 gauge back in and gave up for the night. That didn't last long. I thought back to stretching my earlobes and realized that a blunt end wouldn't go through, no matter how hard I tried. I had to use a spike to stretch my septum for the first time, and I honestly wasn't prepared for it. I had never tried it before, and I had no idea what I was in for. All I knew was, that 4 gauge wasn't going in without using a 2 gauge spike. Off to the studio, found one I liked, took it home, and realized "Holy crap, this thing is huge." But still, I was celebrating my independence, and nobody was stopping me from getting that tunnel in; not even myself.
Breathe deep, count to three...push....and scream. I hadn't realized that after adjusting to the 6 gauge, my septum had healed enough that the center section was loose, but getting past the flares on the 6 still required a little stretching. Going from an in-between size to a straight 2 gauge was the worst pain I'd felt yet. My eyes watered, tears streamed down my cheeks....I took another deep breath and smiled. I'd made it. Or so I thought. The spike was just a tad smaller than the flares on my new ring, so I had to get creative. I found that to get the tunnel in, I had to hold it at an angle and use the edge of the flare to push the spike out, and try to follow through the blood with the tunnel, twisting through the whole way. It took about 5 minutes, but that was the longest 5 minutes of my life.
It's October now, and I still haven't made the jump up to a two gauge. I want to do it soon, and hopefully I'll make it up to a 00g by my 21st birthday, but I think I'll hold off. I think this is my new July 4th tradition....after all, is there really a better way to celebrate your independence?