The Sureness of Aquamarine

Pierced ears, new reflection.

On my tenth birthday, I got my ears pierced. It now took every finger on both of my hands to convey my age, and this was how I would mark the occasion. A rainbow of semi preciousness at my mercy, I singled out a pair of Aquamarine studs, their girdles cradled in a cocoon of satiny sterling silver. The butterfly backs winked at me and so I chose them over their rubber counterparts. The gun pricked me once, and then again. It was done.

My new reflection stared curiously back at me, framed truthfully by my arched mirror. My mirror, embedded in a set of pink and green drawers, who I sat loyally in front of everyday, was presenting me with something I had not seen before. Essentially I was the same as I was yesterday and the day before, but I was now... decorated? Instant love. I knew that from here on out, I would never return to my earringless self. The ears of yesteryear will never see the light of day again.

It wasn’t just the novelty of my freshly adorned lobes. I was a different person. My old earlobes had resigned and my new ones reigned. My head was held higher, my chin the most exposed it had ever dared be. The shyness that had always piggybacked upon the periphery of my being had begun to question its weight. I had gained the companionship of two dancing blue lights against my jet black hair and the world was my oyster.

Breaking stillness, I took a deep breath as I often forget to do. So long pretend, goodbye clip on earrings. I had now entered a brand new era, one where my awareness of self had broken. This wasn’t simply a rush of vanity, rather a reckoning with my sureness of self. I was no longer a bubble of a baby, but a girl. A girl, aged ten, with quiet confidence and aquamarine studs, ready to pack my bag for my next art class.