I Wanted It Back

So…I did a thing.

At 39 years old, just weeks away from turning 40, I got my belly button re-pierced.

And honestly? I’m obsessed.

This isn’t my first belly button piercing. I originally got it pierced my freshman year of college and kept it until I was pregnant with my oldest.

And when I say “kept it,” I don't mean I had it for a couple of years during my college era and eventually took it out.

That belly button was PIERCED for almost a decade and a half.

Freshman-year Tajuana had it. Twenty-something Tajuana had it. Thirty-something Tajuana had it. And eventually, pregnant-with-her-first-baby Tajuana had it.

Then came motherhood, another baby and, well…life.

I never got it pierced again after having my youngest.

Until now.

Technically, this plan started last year. I decided I wanted it pierced again, went to a piercing shop and was told they wouldn’t do it for cosmetic/health reasons.

Fine. I let it go. For a year.

Fast forward to a random Friday after work, and apparently I decided it was time to try again. I went back to the SAME place I tried last year and, unsurprisingly, got the same answer.

Now, a reasonable person might have taken that as a sign to go home.

I am not that person.

Because once my ADHD brain gets an idea and decides we’re doing something, I need to exhaust ALL options before I can let it go. Preferably with the original idea actually coming to fruition.

So I sat there, quickly researched another piercing shop, found one and headed over there.

Mind you, I still had to pick my children up from school. Because nothing says responsible mother of two approaching 40 quite like squeezing in a belly button piercing between work and school pickup.

And this time? They pierced it!

And apparently, when you've had a hole in your belly button for almost 15 years, your body keeps some receipts. Scar tissue.

The piercer told me there was still scar tissue from my original piercing, which meant she had to work through that to pierce it again. Oof.

There was something almost funny about that.

My body literally still had evidence of this thing I did as a college freshman, even after pregnancies, babies, body changes, and all the different versions of me that have existed since. And now, almost 40-year-old me was sitting there like, “Yup. Run it back.”

Piercing through the scar tissue was not comfortable but to me it was worth the pain and once the needle went through and the belly ring was (back) in, I was completely fine.

Because I’m a Full-Grown-Ass Woman. The whole thing makes me laugh because there was no deep ceremony around it. I didn't wake up that morning thinking, Today I reclaim my body.

I just wanted my belly button pierced again.

And you know what? Why not?

I'm a full-grown-ass woman with two kids. I can actually do what I want.

That sounds ridiculously obvious when I write it, but I think there's something to it.

So much of adulthood—especially motherhood—is about what we have to do.

I have to go to work. I have to pick up the kids. I have to check the school emails. I have to make dinner. I have to remember appointments, activities, clothes, forms, lunches and the approximately 900 other things required to keep everybody alive and where they're supposed to be.

There aren't nearly as many moments where the answer is simply: I want to.

So I did. This Body Is 40.

And let's be clear: this is definitely not the same stomach I had when I got my belly button pierced freshman year of college. I've had two children. My body has changed.

There are stretch marks. There's still a pregnancy line hanging around years later. There are parts of my body that look completely different than they did when I was 18/19.

And apparently underneath all of that, there was still a little scar tissue from the girl who originally pierced her belly button all those years ago.

I kind of love that. Not the scar tissue part. That hurt. But the reminder that all of these versions of me have existed in the same body. And this body doesn't need to look like freshman-year Tajuana's body for almost-40 Tajuana to put a belly ring in it.

It feels so natural for me to have it pierced again, it’s like it never left and I forget that it’s there because I don’t feel it. I love that because I had it for 15 years and it was just a part of me and it feels no different the second time around.

Because somewhere along the way, I think we're taught that certain things have an expiration date. That something you did at 18 or 20 is somehow ridiculous at 39 or 40.

That once you're somebody's mother, there are things you're supposed to grow out of.

But...who decided that? I'm not trying to look 20. I certainly don’t want to BE 20 again.

You couldn't pay me enough to go back and relive some of the things I was doing and thinking at 20. But I can still like some of the same things she liked.

Maybe this is what 40 looks like. I've been thinking a lot about turning 40 lately.

Oof. Four decades. 40 trips around the sun. It’s wild to me. When I turned 30, I swore I was walking into something monumental but this decade, I believe this decade will be monumental for me for many different reasons. I have been manifesting so much in the last year of my 30s and I am looking forward to seeing those manifestations come to fruition.

And maybe one of the things I'm taking into this next decade is simply giving myself permission. Permission to change my mind. Permission to try something again. Permission to like what I like. Permission to do something that serves absolutely no practical purpose other than making me happy.

I'm a mother. I'm a professional. I'm almost 40.

I'm responsible for two little humans. And I have a belly button ring. All of those things can exist at the same time.

So yes, I got my belly button re-pierced right before 40. Maybe it was an ADHD side quest. Maybe it was me reclaiming a little piece of myself. Maybe I just wanted a cute belly ring.

Honestly, it was probably all three and I am ok with that.