If God Had Wanted You To Have Holes

(Pre-Script: This post will pierce you any place you do not have a naturally occurring hole if you read it as the song, "Suddenly I See," #32 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

I did not get my ears pierced until I was 16 years old. This is how long it took for my father to relent. The fact that he ever allowed it was monumental, considering that he had until that moment said he would never give me permission to pierce anything, not as long as I lived under his roof as his only daughter. His logic was that, "If God had wanted you to have holes in your ears, He would have created you with holes in your ears."
Blink
Blink
Looking back I really could have used an older sister or two to mellow him out so that by the time I came around, he would just sigh and sign the permission slip I pushed under his nose to get his consent. With a sigh included, sure, but a consent is a consent, and I would have respected the sigh, none the less, and never ever flaunted my (beautiful) pierced ear lobes in his sight. Heck, I would have worn ear muffs every time I was in the house if it came to that. But as it was, I had no older sister, I had to be my own older sister, the older sister that paved the smooth path for the younger sister who was never to follow me. You see, as the oldest sister, you have to walk through a dense dark forest, and you have to chop a way through all the foliage and dampness of growing up, sometimes getting a scratched face or arm along the way, sometimes falling into a deep ditch you did not see coming. The whole time you are singing some old miner's tune or ancient spiritual that has been passed down for centuries from oldest sister to oldest sister. And then the younger sister can walk straight ahead on the path you have already etched out for her. She skips down it hummingly, never once considering what the oldest sister endured to make such a glorious, bright path possible for her. She will also never have developed the muscle and character strength and creative thought that you, the oldest sister gained, by all of that hard work and figuring it out as you went along. She will also not have the cool scars you have to show for it.
Ahem
So there I was, a 16 year old who for 16 years had always heard, "If God had wanted you to have holes in your ears, he would have created you with holes in your ears." and for about the first 4 years of my life I accepted this, believed it, but then I thought about it, and realized that it made no sense. I also knew that Candace Cameron and Alyssa Milano had pierced ears, and I really didn't think that God was holding it against them.
Not to mention the Very Conservative Pastor ( Or, V.C.P.) 's daughter.

Can you imagine having a father who is more conservative than even the Very Conservative Pastor? Think about it.
My desire for pierced ears did not diminish, for though I was a dirty tree climbing grass stained fast running child, I was also a girl's girl at heart, even in a house full of brothers who did all they could to try to run it out of me. As the saying goes, "you can take the girl out of the girl, but you can't take the girl out of the girl." *

So it pained my heart that every year, the pool of friends I could relate to by way of "not having our ears pierced" got smaller and smaller, until eventually, I was the only one.

This made me feel rusty and old, so that when I was eventually allowed to walk into the Et Cetera store to get my ears pierced, I felt more like a 6 year old baby then all of the wise, dark brooding 16 years of life which I had actually lived. But it was worth it to finally have holes in my ears, I mean besides the ones that I was yes, born with, that God did, yes, indeed create upon my naturally occurring body.
I got a second set of holes pierced into my earlobes at the age of 18, when I was old enough to make important decisions on my own, including voting for the President of our entire country, and also ear piercing. Then I got a 3rd hole in each earlobe, for by then I had become addicted. However, my raging need to pierce was forever cured when I went in to consult about getting a possible 4th hole in my earlobes and was informed that any more holes in my ears would have to be poked through my cartilage. I was not willing to suffer that much for beauty.
Now, I am not picking on my Father, by any means, he was the man, and had a right to make his decision. However, my own daughter has pierced ears, which she had to have pierced three times because the first two times they got infected, even though we diligently washed and twisted the earrings twice a day as per instructed. (Don't judge me; don't you judge me...**) The third time she had no problems with infection. And so if my Father had come up with the Possibility Of Infection (Or P.O.I.) argument as to why he didn't want his only daughter (with no older sisters to mellow him out) to pierce her ears, I would have had a greater respect for that decision. As it stands, though, that is not the argument he came up with, let the history books collecting dust on the vast bookshelves of my memory forever proclaim.
I did learn a valuable lesson in all of this, though, and touche to me, because if my own daughter ever asks me if she can get her nose pierced, I will have to tell her: "If God had wanted you to have holes in your nose, he would have created you with holes in your nose."
Blink

Blink

-XOXO,

*If you do not recognize this famous saying, it's because I made it up entirely for this post.

**One of my favorite Kelly Ripa quotes of all time.