Indelible ink

I got my first tattoo at 21. I'd wanted one for years, and I was pretty sure I wanted one of an Egyptian symbol. No, I'm not Egyptian, but I'd been fascinated with Egyptology since I was a kid (still am), and, not being a butterflies and hearts kind of girl, it seemed the logical choice.

I'll admit, many of my friends at that time were getting tattoos like some people get flyers in their mailbox. It was still sort of alternative, kind of cool, something bikers did far more than 20 something girls who wore Doc Martens and stayed up late writing English papers. But the lurking idea, the germ of an inky committment, had, as its impetus, like so many decisions do at 21, a boy.

Specifically, a boy I had loved who loved tattoos and who now loved someone else. So what's a girl to do? I'll show him, I thought - I'll finally get that tattoo. I'll admit the thought process may have been somewhat compromised by Halifax's legendary draught wars. So, drawing in one hand and friend for moral support in the other, off I went. And it turned out perfectly. Granted, half of it had disappeared 7 years later thanks to the use of less than top-notch inks, but one re-inking later, the Eye of Horus remains on my back as a nod to both a childhood obsession and twentysomething hubris. And did the boy ever see it, you ask? Yes, but only much later, after another boy, a truly lovely boy, had fallen under its spell.

My second tattoo came about 5 years ago. It had been a particularly tough year emotionally, and things were finally starting to balance out. To honour both the year that was and the better times sure to come, I chose to have the Sanskrit symbol for "om" inked on my wrist. It means many things to many people but, to me, it has always meant "balance". And like a talisman etched into my skin, I often find myself touching it during tough times. It's my badge of strength and perseverance, and it is not lost on me that a tattoo I got for deeply personal reasons is also the only one of my tattoos that is visible to everyone.

I got my third a week ago. It was the tattoo I thought about the least, it is not the tattoo I had spent the last two years thinking I wanted, but it is the tattoo I will love the most. It means many things to me, but mostly, it is for my grandparents. Even though Grampy has been gone nearly 17 years, and Nanny more than three, I don't think a day goes by that I don't think about them. The most obvious tattoo to honour them would have been a tractor and an apple pie, but I'm not that literal. Not that an apple pie tattoo wouldn't be all kinds of awesome. Even though several people have now seen it, I'm not spilling what it is. But I think it's lovely, and personal, and sexy, and, hopefully, nearly healed, because I can't take the itching. 

I know tattoos aren't for everybody. Every one I've dated has loved them on me, I think, though, oddly, no one I've ever dated has had one, at least not until after we parted. I love them, both on me and on other people, but they are, or at least should be, a deeply personal choice. And I think the reasons people have them are as varied as the tattoos themselves. Some are markers of specific periods in one's life, some are reminders of loves past and present, some are because tequila seemed like a good idea, and some just look effin' cool. I see mine as reminders of who I am, and of who I was. They're my story, on my skin. And you can't get more personal than that.