Ever since I was in eighth grade, I have been friends with a girl named Maria. We weren't very close, but we met first, because my dad used to talk to her mom online, and second, because we had mutual friends. When I went to Europe my sophomore year of high school, Maria was my room mate. And in freshman year, she went out with the boy who is now my boyfriend.
At A Glance Author Jessica Contact Diamondjt@aol.com When A month ago Artist Maria Studio Adrenaline Location Brick, NJ One day, I went into Adrenaline, in Brick, NJ to just look at the jewelry. I don't really like to get pierced there only because I found a studio that I find to be much better. But while there, I realized that Maria was working the counter. (I, later, was offered a job working at the Adrenaline kiosk in the mall, but I am a bad salesperson and realized that I would do horrible there.)
I went back to Adrenaline in Brick and asked Jay, the guy who pierced my lip, if they were hiring. By this time, Maria was an apprentice piercer at the shop. He said they didn't need counterwork but that they were looking for another apprentice. Oh, how I wanted it to be me! Unfortunately, he said they were looking for a guy since they already had a girl. Which seemed sort of unfair to me, and a little strange that they were looking strictly for an apprentice since I would think that they would want someone with experience of working the counter and getting to know the styles of jewelry and everything.
Flash forward a few months, and my boyfriend decides that he wants to talk to Maria again. So since he lives ten minutes away from Adrenaline, we go there a lot to hang out with Maria when she's not piercing. (He always offers to buy me jewelry that would never in a million years fit in my tiny four gauge ears.) Maria always asks me to let her pierce something. Since she is an apprentice, I would only have to pay for the jewelry, which I am all for, although I was nervous about letting an apprentice pierce me. But, she is my friend and she has done a lot for me and vise versa. (She once threw me a surprise birthday party. No one besides her has ever done that!) So I promised her that in a couple of days, I would come back and let her pierce my navel three times.
Well, my friend Angie was home from college, and I called her up and asked if she wanted to come with me. She had come with me a few weeks earlier to go get the other side of my lip pierced at Exotix, and I didn't want to go by myself. So I went and picked her up and we drove up to Brick.
After Maria was done with two other guys getting their lobes pierced, she called me into the room and told me to tuck my shirt under my boobs. She spent a lot of time marking the entrance and exit points of my navel bars. We originally planned on having two on top and one on the bottom, but due to my anatomy, it wouldn't have sat right and probably rejected. In the end, we decided on three across the top. She marked me for about fifteen minutes and then called in Jay and another guy to check the placement. It was good, so she had me lay down in the chair.
Now, I am sitting here, I have two lip rings, a tongue barbell, both nipples pierced, and four stretched ears, I figure, every thirteen year old girl and her mother has their navel pierced. I can handle this. Well, the needle went in agonizingly slow. This was a serious, serious pain. It hurt worse than my nipples! I had to take some time out to catch my breath. Finally, I told Maria to go on with the other two. She went to the right side of the middle one first, and then did the left. Both times hurting just as much, if not more than the first time. But finally, it was over.
Maria took pictures for her portfolio, which to me, was the most exciting part of the night since I have never had a piercing or tattoo that was good enough or unique enough to actually be put in a portfolio. It is also going into one of the frames on the wall. Oh, the excitement.
In the end, it was only $75, and it's healing very nicely. As far as navel rings healing nicely can go. It gets very sore and irritated sometimes, such as if it catches on something or if monthly womanly problems cause my stomach to get all bloated and gross. There are little red bumps at the corner also which I believe is from the barbells being a little too short. Hopefully soon, when I have the money, I will be able to buy longer bars for them.
For me, it was a good experience, but not one of the better ones I've had. It was not a spiritual thing like most of mine are, but more or less and experiment for my friend. If they happen to reject or migrate, or something happens where I have to take them out, it will not be as big a deal as if I had to take out my lip rings. Although they have already become a part of me after the month of having them and I would be sad to see them go.
If you do want navel rings bad enough, I say go for it. But if you are skeptical about getting it done, maybe you should wait a while and think it through a bit more if you are not too big on the pain aspect of getting pierced. Although I would assume that getting your septum pierced or getting a surface piercing would hurt much more, I have never had either and have nothing to compare it to.