Usually when I’m notified to approve a blog comment it’s an inspiring note from a loved one – uplifting, supportive, sweet. So when I opened my e-mail, was asked to approve a recent comment, and was met with hate mail / online bullying / an asshole, I was confused. Did someone really go out of their way to make a fake account, sign up as “anonymous” and then tell me how disgusting my face looks with my new piercing? … Interesting.

Well, thank you, “anonymous” for opening a few doors for me! You shouldn’t have. Really.

Yup, I pierced my septum. And yes, it’s quite big. And yeah, I didn’t give anyone a heads up, post a Facebook announcement about it or put up a post-piercing pic to show off the new gem. Why? Because I didn’t like it. Because it was too big and too foreign to my face. I was uncomfortable with the decision, with how it looked, with how it felt, with what I was doing. I avoided the mirror for two weeks, glancing at it only to clean it, deciding to simply pretend it wasn’t there. Act normal. Let it heal. Decide later how I feel about it. Wait until I can put in a smaller hoop. Wait until enough time has passed to adjust to the new image in the mirror.

It’s been a good lesson in patience. A great lesson in commitment. A wise friend shared a quote with me during my first few weeks on the road as I was sifting through the ambiguity of this journey: “Honor the space between no longer and not yet.”

Honor the space between no longer and not yet…

I decided to dedicate my piercing to this. One end would be what was no longer, and the other end would be what was not yet; the bar connecting the two would be the in-between. The Now. This moment. My path. It was a good reminder as I hit a low one night wanting to take it out due to impending infection + still not liking how it looked. “No”, I told myself. “Stick this out. See what the other side looks like.”

It’s funny to meet people for the first time with a new piercing, a new hair cut, new lipstick, new anything, and think to yourself, “They think this is normal!” They know me no other way. It’s a piercing I’d always pondered about with curiosity but never passionately wanted. I’m almost positive I would have never gotten it at home. There isn’t a clear explanation (and does there need to be?) as to how it all happened. It just did. It just is.

In the end, it’s temporary. Like everything. Will I be 95 years old on my death bed with a septum piercing? Probably not (though that’d be pretty bad ass…rock on!) Will I be 95 years old on my death bed and have learned about myself through impromptu choices, uncomfortable territory, living in the moment and self-reflection? Yup. I’m stoked either way. “…that time, when I was 26, back packing through South East Asia… there was a Thai man named Arm doing piercings and tattoos in the back of the hostel….”

Perhaps, “anonymous”, you should go out into the world and start creating your LIFE, instead of sitting behind a computer screen feeding the online bullying epidemic and attempting to tear down other people’s choices… Perhaps take your own advice: “YOLO!”

Though you send me hate, I send you love. Partly because I know how much that must bother your hating heart :) and partly because I actually do love you anyways.

Cheers to taking chances y’all and to shining Lightness onto Dark. When it becomes exposed it has no other path than to transform into Light itself. May those truly effected by online hate be held, and those sending the hate be healed.

Now go pierce your nose, or your belly button, or your nipples, or something. How ’bout an eye brow? Hey, you never know until you try :)

Love, love, LOVE to you always.
To what is no longer and not yet.