Last Friday night, I had an event. It was just one of those events that is part of my official duties but as usual, the days before the event was full of frenzied last minute touch-ups, and a few sleepless nights for me, as my brain raced at checklists even in the wee hours of the morning. Talk about work-related insomnia, this was certainly a classic example!
On the way to the hotel downtown, I felt that my ears (specifically my pierced earholes) were getting quite painful, maybe I tossed and turned and pressed down on the earlobe too heavily the night before (?). Hence, I removed my right earring from my ear. The relief was felt immediately. So, happily I went about with the event etc.
The next day, I found that my ears were still swollen, and hence no earrings could actually make it through my right ear hole. Thankfully, the other side, which is not swollen, everything was fine. I consoled myself that its was just `one of those days’, and that I would try again the next day. By Sunday evening, when I still couldn’t get in any earring into that earhole, I was really panicking. Tried using the `S’ shaped dangling earring, no, can’t get through. Then changed my strategy to using the white gold ring, alas, same result! Finally, tried using my pure gold rings, still unsuccessful. In the midst of all these trysts, my ears started hurting more and more. Alas, it was time for me to surrender and admit defeat – my `hole’ has closed on me.
Spent the next couple of days in distress and bemoaning my “loss”. Smsed a friend about it, and he sent his `condolonces’ and tried to get me to think of not wearing earrings as akin to girls cutting their long hair short after a long time, and that “it’s all a matter of looking at things from a different perspective”, and of course, that I would also have to just get used to the new way of things (ie cannot wear earrings).
However, I was beyond consoling. Guess in a way, this `loss’ invoked in me emotions that I have never thought I would ever have, in association to something as simple as, a `hole’. Brings back memories of those younger days when I was too afraid to have my ears pierced and my grandma used to admonished me that “if you don’t pierce your ears, you won’t look pretty on your wedding day coz you won’t get to wear earrings”. That sent me to the goldsmith when I was 12, gritting my teeth and bored the onslaught of the sharp (but short) pain that pierced a hole each through my thick earlobes.
For the next few years, I happily wore my gold rings until one day, an accident brought an end to all this. Was knocked down by a car and hit my head hard on the ground. At the hospital, when they were prepping me for x-raying my head (with the bump), my earrings were literally torn away from my ears. No kidding, the pain then was so awful that I could have sworn it felt like they were pulling off my skin with pliers. Hence the end of my `hole’ story, part 1.
My 2nd attempt happened just a couple of years ago. In a rare showcase of camaraderie and bravado, went together with a good friend to have our ears pierced one Chap Goh Meh night, since this is supposedly a good day for doing so. Hence started my second era of wearing earrings.
Coming back to present day, with this `hole’ closure, suddenly, it seems that all that drama is all for nothing. Suddenly am faced with issues even bigger than the words of my grandma, and the physical pain of ear piercing. Suddenly, I realized that this loss somewhat, somehow affected me in terms of my feminity.
Moping my loss, I simply could not imagine not having ear holes to wear all the pretty earrings that I have in my possession. Makes me feel less female in comparison with the girls about town, and I try to make up by covering my ears with my long hair. A friend even joked that since I still have the other good ear with the hole, I could actually start a new fashion trend of just wearing one earring! Funny as that may sound, still it didn’t appeal to me. I still felt that I have lost a part of me that is very female. A thought did creep it that maybe since it was so difficult for me to keep my `hole’, perhaps it was just meant to be?
Finally, four nights after the first realization of the `closure’, I found that my ears were no longer swollen, and decided, oh well, maybe, just maybe, with the swelling gone, I might be able to find my `hole’ back? With the remotest of hope, I sterilized my earrings, lubed on plenty of Johnson baby oil, and tried, and tried…walluup..what did you know? It just went through!!
Wah! Am estatic with joy!! Finally, I feel `whole” again. :D
What a difference a `hole’ can make!
Smsed my friend again that night, “Ahem..I have reclaimed my `hole’ tonight… poked right through”...
Guess what he answered? ‘wah.. that prose sounds so porno…..luckily I understood the context..” haha !!!
