Ink

We are the only species that isn't born with some natural adornment.  No spots, stripes, patterns, feathers, or plumage of any kind.  Yes we have skin and hair, and some of us have freckles or birthmarks, but it not really the same. 

Tattooing has become pretty mainstream over the last twenty years, but I've always has a fascination with body art.  When I was very little (when only bikers or whores has tats – as my old aunt used to say), I would stop and stare intently at the old guy at the diner that my dad used to take me to, who had a sleeve.  I would look at all the colors and lines trying to decipher the story he was telling on his skin.  As a little girl of five or six, It was a wonder to me how it all got there.

I began asking my mother if I could get a tattoo around the age of ten.  I asked her every year from ten until I was seventeen.  The answer was always the same; “You can get a tattoo on three conditions; you earn the money to pay for it yourself, you are eighteen years old, and you are no longer living under my roof”.  Every year I asked and every year mom gave me that standard line.  So when I turned eighteen, I had moved out and went off to college.  And for my eighteenth birthday my mom gave me money.  She looked me square in they eye and said, “I know where this money is going.  Please just tell me you bought clothes with it.”  Then she smiled and shook her head, knowing what a stubborn headstrong daughter she had raised.  I kissed her and replied, “Hey, two outta three ain't bad”. 

I had already scoped out the place I wanted to go.  Back then you didn't need appointments, consultations or all the booking that goes on today to get inked.  You just walked in and they put your ass in the chair and gave you what you wanted. 

I took the fifty bucks my mom gave me for my birthday (yes tattoos were much less expensive back then too) and went to the shop.  I knew what I wanted and where I wanted it; I just had to get a proper visual.

Here I sit almost 21 years later and I still have that little red devil with an “A” on its ass on my left hip.  Thankfully still in the same spot it was originally placed. Not the most distinguished piece ever inked but it still represents the young girl I was.  And how part of her stays with me as I have grown. 

My body has been adorned with ink three more times since then.  All my pieces are relatively concealed and have important significance to me.

As I approach my 39^th year of life, I am going through a great deal of personal, emotional, financial, and physical changes.  My life since the stroke has reintroduced me to the person I sometimes forgot I was or was ashamed to be.  In the past few years I have embraced some things that have allowed me to try, I stress the word TRY, to become ok with myself.  I am still a work in serious progress, but as long as the progress continues I think I will be ok.

I decided for my 39^th birthday I wanted to gift myself the expression of my continued evolution and strength.  I commissioned another piece, which will be, by far, my largest (and most expensive) to date.  It embodies a representation of what I strive for as a human being while embracing my love of certain things.  With that my desire for body art continues.  I look forward to nothing more than sitting in the chair and feeling the sting of the needle adorning me with color and pristine design, only to come away with an amazing representation of the mental and physical journey that is my life. 

For me, getting a tattoo is not about the destination, it’s about the journey.  This leg of my journey will have one hell of a reminder when it is all said and done.