Knock Please!

In the past few years, I think due to marriage, I have become very comfortable in my own skin. Not that I wasn't prior to marriage, but only to a certain extent. Living at home or in a dorm really detracted from walking around scantily clad. It's not that I spend my life behind closed doors like that, but if I need to go from the bathroom to the bedroom for example, I had nothing to worry about. It was just Jeff and I.

These habits I developed have been hard to break. Luckily, when I shower, my uncle is usually still in bed. But, it would help if I was more consistent shutting the door when changing. It happened the other night when I stayed up at my parent's house. Without thinking, I changed my shirt. My father walked by, head down, obviously quite uncomfortable.

This is shocking to me, as I flash back to years past. As a sophomore in college, I went with a friend to get my navel pierced. Really, is there a cooler thing? Ha. Knowing that my father would not be happy about it, he didn't speak to me for three days when I got the cartilage of my ear pierced, I hid it from him. This was harder than you may think.

I remember one basketball game, I dove after a ball and slid out of bounds right in front of where my parents were sitting. As I flew across the ground, my jersey got caught up, revealing my stomach. Somehow, in this moment of action, it crossed my mind to cover my naval ring. I threw my shirt down before anybody would have a chance to catch a glimpse at my stomach. And, I escaped that close call.

A summer or two later, my family was in Florida. I was laying out by the pool in my two piece, when my father came out poolside. So smoothly, I rolled over onto my stomach and held a casual conversation with him. Another sticky situation I escaped unscathed.

Then, came the most extreme case of protectiveness on my part. A case that exceeds all ridiculousness. I would have to say that my family went through a phase of complete and utter lack of privacy. I resented this. In those days, I was big on closing my door. That never seemed to stop anyone. People just walked in. So, getting into the shower one day, waiting for the water temperature to regulate, who busts through the door but my father? Yep, you got it. Standing there, without a single remnant of clothing on, for all to see. And what would any normal person do? Cover the important parts of course. That's not quite what I did. Without a single thought, my hands shot to my belly and covered up my naval ring, leaving the rest of me exposed. Of course, at first realization of what he had just done, my father bolted so quickly he had no chance to notice this.

It wasn't until six years after the initial piercing that my father found it. At that point I was off and married, and to be honest, there was nothing he could do or say about it. I still have the piercing although Jeff greatly dislikes it. I will someday soon part with it. I just feel as though my mid drift will look extremely bare without it. It is like decoration.