Fun & Famous

Why my nose ring is here to stay

I was sixteen when I got my nose pierced. It went like this: a piece of cork behind it and just push. A bit painful, but it was over quickly. And since then, I wear a stud or ring in my nose.

The comments about it were not lacking. Ordinary, ugly, too noticeable: it would certainly be better if I removed that unsightly bell from my nose. Well, oh well; such comments make me dig my heels in the sand, so the bell stayed.

When I was once terribly, impossibly snotty-nosed, I temporarily took the stud out because it irritated my painfully dry nose immensely. No one noticed, not even the biggest opponents of my nose decoration. So it can't be that unattractive.

Temporarily was a few years, and then I felt the need to pierce my nose again. I thought it looked cool, a little different. Meanwhile, we are light-years ahead and that nose ring is still there; although some scolded me that I would kiss those piercings goodbye once I became a mother. Strange, again those heels in the sand. As if you are doomed to wear ‘easy’ hairstyles and proper outfits as a mother. Well, it's still there.

”Temporarily was a few years, and then I felt the need to pierce my nose again”

I no longer see that nose ring. Or rather: I see it, but it's such a natural part of my face that I no longer register it, just like earrings or a mole. Others do see it. Always. Or often. It seemed quite funny to Jort Kelder – then editor-in-chief of Quote – to put me in a report among stock market juniors. That silly little ring in my nose was a minor bottleneck: it would immediately betray me as a strange duck in the pond.

And exactly that quality is what makes my nose ring so cool: it pinpoints me now and then as an outsider – although I don't see it that way at all. I feel like I belong everywhere and nowhere. But still: on the schoolyard, I'm not the ultimate mother hen, because of that silly ring. And in a business environment with corporate career tigers, I'm the odd one out. That's not so strange: in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, right? Among Hindu girls, piercing enthusiasts, and fashion people, for example, I don't stand out at all.

Yet I think that ring does ensure that my clothes rarely look frumpy or boring: there is always that ring that gives things – at least in other people's eyes – an edge. Whether I'm wearing a clean white shirt, a stately suit, or a cool sports grey sweater. It makes people sometimes unable to place you, and I find that just fine. Let me just slide.

Written by Kalinka Hählen