When your younger sister texts you and asks you if you want to go get your nose pierced, how can you be a cool sibling and say no? To be absolutely fair, I totally wanted to do it. I was begging someone to ask me. I took mine out when I was 25, along with my monroe piercing, and, since I’m 29 now, I have to figure out ways to regain (retain?) my hipness. Getting my nose re-pierced fit this bill. Or part of it, anyway.
It’s funny when I think back on what I will surely someday refer to as my “crazy days”. It’s like shouting into a shallow cave. I can sense something back there, but only in a faint, general sense. The images that reveal themselves are dying my hair green, drinking shots easy like they do in movies and getting a big tattoo. I’m not that person now. Or am I? I think I still am, in some ways (hopefully the good ones).
I have really bad and annoying issues with getting older. I Google celebrities all the time and measure my worth against theirs. I obsess over milestones yet unreached and path deviations. I worry that it’s me, that I’m not working hard enough. I pressure myself to the extent that I cannot see the happiness the world can bring, only something undone. I really, really wish I didn’t, but there it is.
This thing with my sister, getting our noses pierced or re-pierced – this was a good thing, and I knew it. We were in and out of the Tat Cave in 20 minutes with two new holes in our sniffers feeling like a million buckaroons. We beamed in the mirror, before a brief moment of sadness washed over me of being her age the first time around. The piercing didn’t hurt as bad as I remembered. Maybe I could still do risky things after all.
Sometimes I think that if I never paid attention to the media or grew up in a tech-less, profile picture-less existence, I would be better off. I wouldn’t be so concerned over the not-haves, and I would just appreciate what I have now, at this point in my existence. I have my moments. Writing can easily lend itself to generalities; like, I never do this, or I never do that. I really do try to appreciate things.
My sister is 22, and most importantly the age that Taylor “Everything That is Youth” Swift idealizes and immortalizes. When I was 22, I still had major self-esteem issues, credit card debt and a really brutal white wine hangover. The visual that comes is that collection of symbols that looks a bald man shrugging.
Ah, Life. So we do things like get our noses re-pierced. We parade around with our younger sisters and pretend that we are doing anything other than wishing desperately these moments of beautiful recklessness weren’t quickly becoming ancient history. I could say I’m totes fine with that, but I’d be lying to you if I did.
That Lady Cat 