Week 7: Fearlessly Be Yourself

My brothers always called me the Golden Child.  It was usually only around Christmas that they would call me that though.  I always got the most presents, therefore, they felt the need to label me as the most favored.

They weren't wrong though.  I was the good kid out of us three.  I was also the youngest and the only daughter my parents had, so I guess you could say that made me a teeeeennyyyy bit spoiled.  Well, at least my dad liked to spoil me.

Either way you looked at it, I never gave my parents any real problems.  I was far set apart from my brothers who either made really dumb decisions or just couldn't get along with our mom and dad.  I grew up smart, independent, and knowing who I am, or at least who I wanted to be.

And that person that I wanted to be included tattoos, dark clothes, many many ear piercings, and even gauging my ears.  Now, I know what you're thinking, those don't look like any great descrepencies.  However, my parents are strong Christians, and my father is very traditional about appearances.  You know, the kind of man that hates short hair on girls.  Ironic that he'd be graced with me, who has shaved part of my hair off.

So here I was around May last year, 21 years old and in the bathroom, gauging my ears.  I had already gone through a few sizes, so I was just in the process of moving up again.  My parents were downstairs, watching TV, and they hardly ever came upstairs so I thought I had some time. 
My mistake. 

Even though some months had passed since I had begun the gauging process, they hadn't noticed, until that day.  I had just gotten the first taper in my ear and I was working on the second one when my mom had come in to open up the windows.  It didn't take long for her to ask me what I was doing, and for me to hesitantly reply with "gauging??"
Another mistake, but I live off of honesty.  She had already caught me, lying seemed unproductive.

That was the first day I have ever had to stand up for myself against my parents, and yell back.  It didn't take my mother five seconds to go screaming and gathering up my father.  Upon hearing that I was gauging my ears, his response was, "No you aren't!"

Man, I got the full treatment.  "What are they gonna look like when you're my age?" "You've seen all those freaks out there with those huge holes."  "Why do you wanna look like that?"  "You're not doing this, you're stopping right now."

They had said a lot of things like that to me, like I had no choice or say in the matter.  I can't say I helped the situation either.  I don't stand down very well, especially when I haven't done anything wrong.  I told my own parents that they wouldn't have to worry about looking at my saggy earlobes when I'm there age, cause they'd be dead before it got there.

It was wrong to say that, I know.  It was just unbelievable what they had to say about my earlobes.  There are hundreds of worse things I could be doing with my life, but no, I'm just making a tiny hole already in my ear, slightly bigger.  And I mean slightly.

It was just so frustrating to be raised by them telling me to be strong and to be myself.  My mom had even hung a poster in my room that literally said, "Fearlessly Be Yourself."  I guess she only meant fearlessy be myself as long as it complied with her values.

But, I agree with those words.  Fearlessy Be Yourself.  I've always been the Golden Child in my family, and I still am.  Nothing about me as a person has changed, just my appearance has changed.  It doesn't matter what I look like, because I know who I am inside.  And that's all that matters to me.

All of that yelling at each other blew over relatively quick.  My mom had realized how ridiculous she was being that same night and apologized to me.  My dad never apologized, but he's like me, more of a forgetting than a forgiving person.

Regardless, a year has passed and I love my plugs.  They make me feel good about myself, no matter what anyone else has to say about it.

In the words of Dr. Suess,

"Those that matter don't mind

and those that mind-

Fuck em"