I Hated My Stomach Until I Pierced My Belly Button

From Seventeen

I was in the dressing room at American Eagle when the panic set in. I was a junior in high school. All I wanted was to be thin and pretty and well-dressed, and the fact that I was muffin-topping over a pair of skinny jeans was sending me into a nervous spiral. I yanked off the jeans, put on my old A-line skirt that floated over my stomach, and got out of there fast. My throat was tight and I could feel tears building up behind my eyes. And that's when Devon, my friend and shopping partner, caught up to me. She knew something was wrong right away. I admitted that I hated how my stomach looked in the jeans - no, not those jeans. All jeans. All clothes. All the time.

Devon took my hands in hers and told me that I was beautiful. Her words were hard to believe. She was my friend, duh, what else was she going to tell me? But when she explained that everyone needs a little fat just to survive, she started making sense. I knew she was right. But that didn't make me feel any better about my stomach. Even if it looked fine to my friend, I reasoned that everyone is entitled to have something about themselves they don't totally love. Mine was my stomach, and that was that.

When I a kid, I saw Britney Spears on TV. She sang and danced and had jewels dripping from her belly button over her washboard abs. I was obsessed. I spent the rest of my childhood doodling colorful dots over my belly button with Magic Markers.

But I didn't like the body I grew into, and I never thought I was the kind of girl who could pull of a pierced belly button. That is, until my senior year of college, when Morgan, my best friend and roommate, came home with a shiny piercing nestled into her belly button. She looked amazing. I was instantly jealous.

I wanted to pierce my belly button so badly. And after years of liking the look, there was nothing holding me back anymore - except how I felt about my stomach. I knew I'd feel lame forever if I let a decade-old insecurity keep me from something I wanted to do. So I decided to do it.

I researched a reputable piercing salon in my neighborhood and found one with good reviews and prices I could afford, and went with my sister. At the salon, the woman behind the counter checked my driver's license to ensure that I was over 18 years old, confirmed I hadn't been drinking (in addition to blurring your judgment, alcohol is a no-no for piercings because it can increase your risk of bleeding), and gave me a form to sign indicating that I understood the risks - a possible infection was the biggest one. I picked out a piece of jewelry (two small fake rubies) and was ready to go.

Another woman led me behind a black curtain to the back room. She instructed me to stand up very straight and roll up my shirt to expose my stomach. I did as I was told, and instinctively sucked in my stomach, like I'd done every single time I'd changed in gym class or gone swimming at the pool ever since I could remember. She didn't seem to notice or care what my stomach looked like - she was focused on drawing a dot over the exact center of my belly button with a purple Sharpie.

When I was ready, I sat in the reclining black leather piercing chair. The woman swabbed my stomach with disinfectant and prepped a sterilized needle. On the count of three, she slid it through the skin directly above my navel. I won't lie, it hurt. When she fiddled with the ruby jewelry I had selected, twisting it around the new hole to stay on tight, that hurt even more.

On the way out, I was given instructions for caring for my new piercing and paid $75 for the procedure and the jewelry. Then I was released into a future filled with more crop tops than any one girl should legally be allowed to own. I sped-walked halfway down the block and stopped to admire the reflection of my new navel in the window of a 7/11.

Back home, I immediately changed into a cropped sweater that didn't quite meet the top of my skirt. I felt hot, like I was ready to make out with Justin Timberlake and perform "Oops... I Did It Again" for a crowd of adoring fans. I felt like Britney. Finally.

Now that I had a piercing to show off, I wanted to show it off. It was November, but I didn't care. I wore crop tops to class with skirts that exposed a flash of stomach. I wore crop tops to parties with mid-rise jeans, leaving a solid three inches of flesh out in the open.

By the time summer rolled around, my belly button hadn't seen the inside of a t-shirt in months.

I told my friends it was a joke, calling it an "ironic" piercing. Girls pierced their ears and noses all the time, but even in 2014, pierced navels weren't really a thing - the look might as well have been time-stamped to the 1990s. But deep down inside, I wasn't joking. Rocking my belly button ring really made me feel better about my body.

For the first time in a decade, I loved the way I looked - even the softness of my stomach. That stubborn bit of stomach fat I cried over in high school never went away, no matter how little or how much I weighed. It's just part of how I'm built, and that's OK.

Of course, there's no shortcut to confidence. You can't Google hacks to make yourself happier with who you are and how you look. Making peace with your body doesn't necessarily happen overnight - it's not like I paid someone to slide a needle through my skin and left the salon as an enlightened human being.

But for me, at least, forcing myself to embrace my bare stomach helped. Hiding away my least favorite feature under flowy dresses and A-line skirts meant I never had to think about what I really looked like - but putting it on display means I've gotten used to it. I've made peace with it. I don't even bother sucking in my stomach anymore.

In the two years since I pierced my belly button and embraced #croptoplife, not a single person has called me fat, or ugly, or recoiled when I appeared with my stomach exposed. It's been fine. Plus being studded with jewels makes me feel glam as hell 24/7.

We all have hang-ups about our bodies - yes, including that seemingly "perfect" model you stalk on Instagram. I never realized that a little bit of bling would help me get over mine.