This was done as a joint homework response for both Story of Illness and Hello Computer.
“Am I depressed or am I just lazy?” is a half-joking half-serious question I often bring up to my therapist, with other alternative versions include “Do I really have ADD or am I a hoarder?”, “Am I really traumatised or am I just looking for attention?”, and "Do I really have mental health problems or am I just using them as crutches to avoid responsibilities?"
The three occasions I got pierced marked three significant life periods in my life.
The first was done when I was a newborn, my mom tipped the nurse 5 cents for a quick poke on both ears. There is no cultural significance to piercings in Vietnam, it was a service mostly offered to baby girls for cosmetic purposes. I remembered the pain vividly and woke up crying during the poking of the second hole, making it slanted and imperfect. Looking back, it’s interesting how, within the first few days of my life, I’m already marked with a hole that announce my gender and sexual orientation and characteristic and life trajectory.
The third, fourth, sixth and seventh piercings was done when I came home after a year abroad. I got it done in a hospital, by a male doctor who repeatedly told me I would look better without them. The piercings were done horribly and continue to bleed to this day.
The seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth piercing, I got them done within one month and a half, during my first summer in the United States. I was grieving over something intangible and I needed something tangible, so I paid to have holes professionally punched, to have physical wounds opened … so I have something to take care of, so I can heal alongside them. I woke up the morning after with small blood spots all over the pillow, and I was elated! I was elated to know I was alive and my body was working and that it’s working hard to keep me alive. I wanted a sign.
My piercings still bleed occasionally; most of them are technically “healed”, but they do respond to stresses and hormones and dirt accumulation and hair tugging and over-cleaning. Sometimes a piercing would randomly swell up and swallow the jewelry. I don’t blame them though; I don’t think my body will ever understand the concept of “beauty” or “piercing”, they just knew that these are open wounds and they needed to save me from them.
Reading The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating reminded me of my relationship with my piercings and, in extension, my body; in a way, her snails are my piercings? While I did have questions/doubts over the anthropomorphism and projection (humans can be and self-centered creature, since we love to make everything about us!), I can see how living along aside a snail can be a comforting revelation, to look and experience time from a different perspective. Like her illness, a snail’s life can’t be sped up or slowed down; it cannot choose to always have a baby bella mushroom for dinner, but it live everyday looking forward to one. It’s grounding to know what no matter how hard we fell, the snail will continue to move on, and the body will continue to heal.