Piercings and the Lost Zzzs – II
I recently watched a YouTube video. On helix piercings. After the event. Not helpful at all. I already knew that. Only I didn’t know I had to know all that. Before the event.
To summarise the video: healing sucks, tick; sleep goes out of the window, tick; can’t change jewellery, tick (witness my pus-filled ear in April); gets caught on things, tick; headphones, headbands become instruments of torture, tick; pillowcases sport suspicious stains, tick.
I walked out of that jewellery shop on Christmas Day, with just one line of warning: do not touch for the next three weeks. Easy-peasy. I have since learnt that a helix piercing can take six–eight months to heal, maybe even upwards of a year if you fiddle with it. Tick. And we’re only seven months down the line as yet.
Just last week, I tried to change my earrings. Yet again. My fingers now encounter crusted blood whenever I touch my ears. Yet again.
I came back to Swansea in February thinking the first thing I would do was visit a piercing parlour and get some suitable earrings that would make sleep a more achievable goal. Enter Covid-19. Well, let’s just say that sleep has become a long-term goal now. Maybe even a five-year plan.
Meanwhile, the son’s friend’s words were doing a hamster run in my head. Mid-life crisis–mid-life crisssis–mid-life crisisss – you get the drift? My head is costive like that. That’s a polite way of saying constipated. And that’s a rude way of saying what goes into my brain is difficult to dislodge. And I now had plenty of time to hear this particular hamster running circles. At night.
It took the son coming home to put things into perspective. ‘No one can have a mid-life crisis for five years,’ he said firmly. ‘Not even you.’ And an after-thought, ‘Shall I go and sock him for you?’
In June, I went to M&S to get some chocs for the husband. Father’s Day, right? The girl at the counter had a piercing. In her nose. I remembered not to lean into her as I whispered urgently, ‘Did that hurt? Look at mine, it’s been six months.’
Her eyes grew fuzzy with sympathy. Melted chocolate, I’d call it if I didn’t have those piercings. ‘Oh gosh, those are the worst. I let mine close up, they were so painful.’
If it had been a mid-life crisis, I would have abandoned my piercings by now. I swear. A mid-life crisis would be like blueberry pancakes compared to my helix piercings.
