I remember having hair, in fact, in my dreams, I still have it. It seems bizarre to be defined by one part of your appearance and even more bizarre to define yourself by it but my hair (thick, black, slightly curly, down to the small of my back almost) was so much a part of me that I couldn't imagine myself without it. Yes I know it's pathetic, but we all have our comfort blankets.
At A Glance Author John Contact John@bme.anon When A month ago Artist Simon Studio Metal Fatigue Location Bournemouth Anyways, why all the hair talk? well because things went wrong, very wrong, and because of a fairly crappy illness, I lost a lot of hair in a very very short space of time. I had no choice but to shave the rest off. It sounds silly to me now, now that I couldn't care less about my hair (or lack of) but at the time I was pretty heartbroken.
After a day or so of teenage depression I decided that it would take a lot more than that to knock me down and that hair was just hair and that on the plus side, now that the hair was gone, I could reinvent myself.
So, off came the hair and I decided that now was a good time to start getting those piercings I had been thinking of for years and years. The first one I wanted was my bridge, I had thought about it for a while and had just never got around to it. Partly I was put off by a bad experience when having my eyebrow pierced at a local place known for its crappy (but oh so cheap) piercings (wrong size bar used, balls screwed down so tight that when it had healed a bit and I took it out to put a better size bar in there it actually took a pair of pliers to undo the balls....)
This time, I had learned from my mistakes and went to Metal Fatigue, a place known for its professionalism and good aftercare. I expected to be pierced by Sarge, but he asked if I would mind Simon doing the piercing. I had no problem with that, Simon is a good friend and I trust him completely, but it seems Simon was not all too keen. He had not pierced a bridge before and did not want to leave an asymmetrical mess on my face. But he agreed to do it in the end and so I went through into the studio and tried not to laugh at the worried look on Simon's face as he marked it up.
When it was all marked, Simon asked me if it looked right to me and was where I wanted it, he then got sarge in to check the placement was right before he pierced it (which it was.)
So, on to the piercing. Simon must have numbed the area pretty well because I felt hardly anything, a small pinch perhaps, but that was it. When it was all done and dusted I checked it out in the mirror and it was amazingly well done. I've seen a few bridge piercings where the piercer has failed to take into account that people's faces aren't necessarily symmetrical and has just pierced in a straight line across the nose, which ends up with the piercing looking a bit lopsided. But, to his credit, Simon had actually taken into account the shape of my face when doing the marking up and so the piercing looks perfect, and fits perfectly on my face. There is definitely a hell of a difference between a quick, cheap piercing and one that is done professionally and carefully. For a start there was hardly any swelling, and even a few hours after it had been done it definitely didn't look as if it had just been done that day. The other great thing I have to mention is the aftercare, Simon told me to come and see him anytime and he would gladly check it out and see how it was coming along, and in my intense fear of my body rejecting the piercing i have been in and out of the shop all the time getting people to have a look at it.
This was my first step to rebuilding myself and since then I've started stretching both ears up (only at 3mm at the moment but ill get there.....) and have many more things planned for the future. There are always body mod elitists who tell the rest of us that our reasons for being pierced are false or that we are just trying to "fit in" but for me it was so that I could look into the mirror and be proud of what I saw, so I could see something other than the hollowed out shell of someone I used to be. It has worked, I am now a new person and a better person. I am truly myself and actually feel almost comfortable with my reflection ( though i often don't recognise it). It is an amazing feeling to stop seeing your body as what you are stuck with for the rest of your life and to start seeing it as a blank canvas, to shape as you see fit and now my only problem is that I have so many ideas and possibly not enough skin to fit them all in.....