Turning 30 Hurts… A Lot

originally published December 6, 2006

I turned 30 recently. In the preceding months (12 to be exact), I had contemplated the significance of this number. Thirty. The Big 3-0. Trigenerianism, here I come. Perhaps it only loomed so heavily in my mind because we have a base 10 counting system, and if we had eight fingers total, I would have been freaked out about turning 32 instead. I could have been saved a couple of years' stress.

Maybe, but the fact remained: I had 10 fingers. When I was a kid, 30 was an age too adult to even be comprehensible. I grappled with this issue for awhile. It wasn’t vanity that was the problem, or even mortality. Perhaps it was the inevitable departure of my youthful spirit that I feared. Would I wake up on my birthday and be, gulp, mature? Less interesting? Less entertaining? More likely to discuss changes in meteorology and loss of bone mass?

Impossible. But just to make sure I didn’t lose my youthful edge, I decided the only sensible thing to do was to get my nose pierced.

A few weeks after the Big 3-0 came and went, I noticed something. The something was… nothing. Nothing had changed. I wasn’t older-looking. I wasn’t older-acting. My knees weren’t starting to give. And so, I knew I had to change something. I had to define this arbitrary monument somehow.

I got a sudden and decisive urge to get my nose pierced during lunch one Thursday. I had given the matter some thought, discussed it with my spouse (he was a non-starter), and prepared myself for the fact that a needle would have to be involved. Then I just had to have it done… right then… that day, that time. A compulsion is what it was. I had to have that nose ring before I got a day older. I mean, what if I got hit by a truck without a nose ring? How would people know I was still cool?

The first establishment I visited in hopes of becoming holed in 30 minutes or less only sold nose jewelry; they didn’t actually do the piercing. Undeterred, I went across the street to a tattoo place I knew did piercing. Yes, they pierced, but the only nose jewelry they had in stock was spiked. I wanted to prove to the world that I was hardcore, but not THAT hardcore. A spike just didn’t say “mommy.” The piercer told me to go buy the jewelry at the mall, bring it to him, and he would pierce me. Hmm, I’d have to go to the mall for the jewelry? That didn’t sound very hardcore. Was this the universe’s way of telling me today was not the day to get a hole poked in my face? Well then, I would rebel against the universe.

There was no stopping me at this point. Every obstacle was another chance to prove how hip I really am. Look at the trouble I would go to on a Thursday afternoon to have my face punctured. Oh yes, I’m just that young and free spirited. I drove to the suggested jewelry store for my nose accentuation, and I saw that they actually did piercing right there. I was informed that the guy could be there in 10 minutes, and I could be pierced in two minutes. Sweet. I was set. I had no loyalty to spiky jewelry guy. I picked out the tiniest diamond stud I could find, signed several pieces of paper swearing not to sue the owners if my face fell off, and then I was in the chair. Bring on the pain. 'Cause I’m cool like that.

Unlike the establishments I visited downtown, this mall piercer looked pretty benign. He had a few embellishments strategically placed in his ears, but otherwise he was hole-free. Somehow this gave me confidence. After all, this was an upstanding individual I was doing business with, not some freak who got his jollies by putting needles through people’s skin.

He explained very thoroughly what he was going to do, showed me how he sterilized the materials, and then told me if I didn’t want to see the needle I should turn away from the mirror. Okay. I certainly did not want to see the needle. I told him I wanted the piercing on my right side, because that was my “good side.”

He chuckled. “People have the strangest reasons for which side they pick.” I guess he didn’t agree the right was my good side. “I’ve given birth by the way, so this should be no big deal,” I told him nonchalantly. “Yeah, a lot of women say that.” What? A lot of women? How many mommies are coming in here for needling? I started to feel decisively less punk rock. Regardless, I braced myself.

The smell of alcohol hit me as he readied the outer nostril, and then he pulled my nose out with some tiny forceps so he could see what he was working with. Being the large child I am, I thought when he said, “You’ll feel a little pull,” that would be the end of my discomfort. Oh no. That wasn’t the piercing. Before I knew it, a sharp needle had been inserted into the meat of my nose. It hurt. It hurt a lot. I didn’t even try to look brave. As he shoved the ball that holds the jewelry in place into my nose, he said, “Your right eye may tear up involuntarily. Don’t be embarrassed.” Embarrassed? I wasn’t embarrassed, I was crying! And I would have been happy to scream this out to the whole mall. This asshole made me cry! My God, this hurts!!

On top of the pain that was radiating through the side of my face, Mr. S&M then informed me that I was a “bleeder.” Fabulous. He shoved Q-Tips up my nose and on top of the piercing and applied pressure. He held them there, and held them… and held them. As I stared up at the man, the pain was lessening, and I suddenly felt pressure to make conversation.

“So,” I began, “You pierce a lot of nipples?” “Nah, about one a month I guess. Mostly navels and noses. And nothing below the waist.” Ouch. Why did he have to go there? I couldn’t imagine the thudding bloody mess that was my “sexy” piercing on any other spot on my body, much less below the waist. Freaks. But who knows, maybe when I turn 40.

Eventually the bleeding stopped and the pain faded. I was given some thorough instructions about how to care for my piercing and told that most people whose piercings got infected just didn’t clean them properly. No problem. I’m a mamma: I clean everything properly.

As I got into my car to drive away, Bactine in hand, I checked my nose in the rearview mirror. It was red, but there was no mistaking it, it was most certainly cool. I had commemorated the big 3-0, and no matter what my dad or my hubby, or even my grandpa might say, I was my own woman; it was my birthday, and I’ll pierce my nose if I want to. Besides, the only man’s opinion I really cared about was my son Justice’s. When I got home and showed him the jewel, a smile spread across his face, “Mommy, your nose is beautiful! It sparkles now!” And then his grin took on a devious aside, “I can’t wait until I can get my tattoo!”

As soon as you’re 30 son, and not a day before.

Elizabeth Deroshia