The naval ring

When I was 19 I got my naval pierced.  Oh what a day it was.  It was a Saturday morning I had just been paid and had already gone to the tanning salon and soaked up some uv Rays.  I had resolved to do it years before but this was something heavily frowned upon by my family and I didn't want to shake things up too much while I still lived with my parents, but I had moved out and this pier I was a statement of independ, and it's about as daring as I have ever been.  I walked into that tattoo parlor, ID in hand, selected a stainless steel hoop and walked out 15 minutes later my flat abdomen newly adorned.  I was elated!  I spent the next several months cleaning it and protecting it, unsnagging it from my jeans every time I sat down or stood up.  It was high maintenance and it seemed like it took forever to finally heal and feel comfortable.  I loved my preircing.  Every summer I would buy a new piece of naval jewelry to match my bikini.  Never for a second regretted having it done.  I never took the naval ring out without putting another in right away because I was afraid of it closing up, then not only would I not have my piercing anymore, all of the pain and work involved with healing it would have been for nothing.

My midriff and I carried on this way for 6 glorious years without a hitch, until my belly was stretched to capacity with baby Chloe in tow and my entire belly button was about to pop.  So out came the ring.   As quickly as I could I returned the ring to my now flabbier mom tummy, and was delighted to find that it slid right back in, I was 26 now and a mommy but I still hanging on to my 19 year old adventure in piercing.  Having that trophy of independence was still important to me, mommy hood had not robbed me of my youth, I was just the way I was before...only...I wasnt.  

My tummy wasn't the same after pregnancy and the pretty jewelry hung sadly down over my cesearan scar.  It was rubbed raw from where Chloe would lay against it while I fed her and when she was sturdy enough to stand and climb up my torso while I burped her it got snagged and pushed and pulled.  It was always getting hung up on my jeans as I was always tucking my new mommy pooch in or yanking it painfully when I was pulling my pants up over my new wider bottom.  But this didn't stop me, nope. I wasn't ready to let it go, I wouldn't be defeated.   I worked out and dieted and did millions Of crunches and by my 27th birthday my midriff  was almost restored to its former glory, just in time for summer, and bikinis.  My midriff and I enjoyed that summer, I couldn't sunbathe anymore because I had a baby with me at the pool, but I was a bikini mom...with an awesome pierced naval.  Well then came the news of my second pregnancy and things went the same as the had after Chloe, out came the jewelry during maternity and in it went after delivery. Now I was a bikini mom with two babies, no tan, and a naval ring, I was still hip, still just as cool and independent as my 19 yr old self.  Then...pregnancy #3. Sigh. Out it came and back in it went.  I wore a bikini with a skirted bottom on a family vacation to the beach equipped with a spray tan and my newest naval ring.  Bella wasn't even walking yet and I spent our beach time slathering all of my babies in sunscreen and keeping my crawling infant from eating sand, not as cool as my 19 year old self. Not as hip.  When we looked at our photos of the trip, I looked like a mommy. Not like a cool teenager, I was 30 now and after seeing my body now lumpier despite weighing what I always had I resolved that I no longer needed to be a bikini mom, just a mom, maybe with a posh one piece and a wide rimed sun hat and groovy sarong. But still, I didn't want to scrap the naval ring. I wore it concealed by my clothes no matter how impractical because of what it represented to me.  THEN pregnancy #4. Done, ok life you win.  Out came the jewelry into the jewelry box.  Sophia came and life was busy enough with out wrestling with that darn naval ring.

I would look at it in my jewelry box while I reached for sensible stud earrings that my baby wouldn't violent yank from my earlobes and I'd give it a silent nod of acknowledgment.  . Seeing it there in my jewelry box was memory enough for now, maybe someday I'd peirce it again. It had certainly closed by now.

The other day I pulled that jewelry out.  I apprehensively slipped it into the dent that for nearly two years hadn't held anything and it slowly but surely slipped into place.  I looked in the mirror and smiled remembering all of those years with my naval ring, then I slipped it out and threw it away. At nearly 35 years old I'm finally ready to close the book on 19 year old me and embrace the lovely middle aged wife and mother I have become.  Now my cesarean scars and oven burns from thanksgiving dinner are my new adornments, and the memories they carry are far more valuable.