I got my first one on my 18th birthday.
It was a sweltering day in early June, and with butterflies
flapping wildly in my stomach I marched down to the small, grungy
building located inconspicuously on a sleepy side street in
downtown Chico.
I got my first one on my 18th birthday.
It was a sweltering day in early June, and with butterflies flapping wildly in my stomach I marched down to the small, grungy building located inconspicuously on a sleepy side street in downtown Chico.
I momentarily hesitated at the giant painting of a pierced heart entwined in barbed wire – its sanguine complexion contrasting vividly with the lemon yellow paint on the door.
As my hand rested lightly on the doorknob, a distant memory flashed in my mind: a quiet, almost shy child sitting timidly at her desk, her blue plaid pinafore hanging modestly below her knees and her red hair in pigtails.
Then I opened the door, walked up to the ink-laden, heavily pierced guy at the front desk and told him to tat me up.
I never thought I would be the tattoo type. Now, everyone and their mother (literally) has tattoos, but six years ago it was just starting to slip into the mainstream and good Catholic school girls didn’t get tattoos.
Granted, I went though my hippie/grunge stage in high school when I thought it was cool to shop at the Salvation Army, and for about a second I did the tomboy, baggy jeans with boxers poking out the top thing.
But a permanent mark on my body? Not a chance. How would I look when I was old, with loose, sagging skin, varicose veins, liver marks and… tattoos?
Like white trash, that’s what.
But on that sticky summer day – that sweaty, synthetic smell given off by surgical gloves in a room with no air-conditioning filling my nostrils – none of that mattered anymore.
I sat in the tattoo parlor, best friends in tow, and told the artist to sketch three letters – kind of plain, nothing fancy, but make them look good.
These three letters that I had decided to have permanently etched into my body had meaning.
They represented a life, a death, a future and a past. Imbued into each drop of ink was a memory, a smile, a tear and a touch.
Because three months earlier, on March 8, 1998, I had lost my boyfriend, Ben, in a car accident, and I had made up my mind to pay tribute to his memory in the most personal way I could think of.
So after about 25 minutes of sizzling pain from a needle drilling continuously into my lower spine, I had what I wanted. Three initials, about an inch-high each, that would forever keep him, if not in the forefront, then definitely in the back of my mind.
After that first one, four more tattoos have followed, each one signifying a momentous experience in my life.
It’s interesting how a tragedy can change a person – make you do things you never thought you would, make your life skip off on tangents you never realized were there.
If someone would have told me I would live my adult life with another person’s initials seared permanently into my back, I would have called them a liar to their face.
I scoffed at people who took love to that level, laughing to myself of their naivete and classless exuberance.
The six-year anniversary of Ben’s death came and went on Monday, and though it’s starting to fade, the three black letters I so pridefully displayed on my 18th birthday still make me smile.
Time after time I’ve had people ask me if I regret that tattoo, if I’ll get it removed if I get married, if I think the decision was a premature act of a young, confused mind.
My answer is always no, but really, it’s so much more than that.
The person I have become today is a direct result of my time with him when he was alive and my experiences after he passed.
The strength I acquired, the empathy, the desire to live my life the way he did – with a fiery passion to make the most out of every day because it really could be your last.
The ability to distinguish between the things that are truly important from the things that can be brushed off like cookie crumbs.
Ostensibly, I picked up quite a few bad habits over the years that I probably wouldn’t have acquired had he not died, but one thing I can say without hesitation, even after all these years, is that I’ll never be sorry.
I’ll never be sorry I knew him, even though if I hadn’t I wouldn’t have had to deal with his death.
I’ll never be sorry I loved him so deeply, because unlike so many people, I know what it is like to be loved so deeply back.
And I’ll never be sorry when I look at that tattoo, because in three letters, it simply and succinctly symbolizes who I was, who I am, and everything I can be.
