This I Believe… Tattoos
When I meet someone, go to a job interview, or have on a big coat to fight off the cold days in State College no one ever sees what matters most to me.
My Tattoos…
See I know you expect me to say “you need to embrace art and express yourself with work on your body” or “my body is my masterpiece” but that is so not the case. I love my body with or without tattoo’s that’s why it is much deeper than that. The art work on my body expresses my life. I have been getting tattoos before the appropriate age of 18. And of course, I am judged for them and I also have one of those mothers who did not approve of them… at first.
My mother’s initial reaction was what you expect when you rebel against parents. I got the usual punishment and the “go to your room” scream, but my mother asked something I didn’t expect her to.
She said, “Why did you get it?”
I was shocked, and I had a response prepared, but as a kid I was wondering whether she was actually going to believe me. I told her that it was for my grandfather and after that her anger dialed down a bit and I began to see tears.
My grandfather played a big role in our lives. He not only spoiled my mother because she was the baby of the family but he always supported me when I needed him to. Especially for moments like these, a few months before the tattoo my grandfather passed away from cancer. Leading up to his passing, me and my mother spent the last two months of his life with him and we grew closer even though I knew he was leaving soon. We woke up every day and helped my grandmother take care of him and keep him company.
I told him things I never thought I would say to my grandpa and I even found out that we both had a love for watches. Two weeks before his death he gave me a few and even though my wrist was too small and they fell off every time I tried to wear them I kept them because they were special.
My tattoo spells out his name and it is also where I wear my watch so I see it every day to remind me of the time we spent together also for our love of watches. I vowed to myself that from this tattoo on that each one would mean something to me just like his name.
I believe in tattoos, that is why I say it is my life each one has a story behind it. And no, I don’t do it to make my mother love to hate me I do it because like most people my life is a story and behind each tattoo is my version of self-expression.
P.S. my mother no longer gets mad at me she just ask the same simple question of, Why did you get it?