=

It didn’t hit me until my piercer started talking about the aftercare, but this piercing is probably the best thing I could have done to commemorate my new life as a Software Engineer.

It’s hard to see even in the picture above, but I got my nose pierced today (I also put on makeup and tweezed my eyebrows for the photo so I’m feeling pretty damn girly). There are all sorts of reasons I could have said that I got this piercing: I wanted to celebrate leaving behind Oregon for California, I wanted to celebrate my acceptance into Hack Reactor, I wanted the world to know that I’m finally starting to feel OK in my own skin. None of those was the real reason I walked into that shop. In reality I walked in there because I wanted something different. I wanted to be one of the cool kids and get my nose pierced. Even at 27 I still want “in”.

What I got out of getting my nose pierced was much more than even the symbolism I wanted to attach to it in the first place. After the initial high of wanting my nose pierced, I walked into the store still a little bouncy and chose my jewelry. Then I sat in the chair, saw the needle and the giant tube they were going to stick in my nose, and started to freak out a little. Even knowing that the pain would last for a second as the piercing dude assured me (while making small talk about how awesome San Francisco is in the process) I was tense. Then I got stabbed with a needle, a piece of metal was twisted in to my nose and I looked at myself in the mirror.

It was a pretty awesome feeling and it wasn’t even about the jewelry. It was when I saw myself in the mirror that all that symbolism that I’d tried to force on this tiny piece of jewelry suddenly settled around me. It was the nose stud, yes, but it was so much more. It was the Lexapro that I started taking about a year ago after a panic attack left me feeling like I was going to die that very minute alone in my apartment while I sobbed on the phone to my mom that I couldn’t breath and my mom was an hour away and probably feeling pretty helpless herself. It was the car keys to my very first car that I bought last year and the moment this year when I first drove on the freeway alone. And it was the feeling I felt when I visited Ava after she moved to Burlingame. It felt like peace and home and like I could become whoever I wanted to be there. It was then that I started to fight for that dream.

In the end, I will say that I got this nose piercing for Hack Reactor. This nose will take about 4 months before I can safely put new jewelry in it. This program will be over around the same time. Then I can put on a new career and wear “Software Engineer” like a badge of honor (along with some cute/geeky new nose bling).