Tattoos

Do you remember in elementary school, the temporary tattoos? I loved them, love them still. Cute little splashes of color used as a time filler at parties. The kids love them because they can have that little artistic expression, moms don't freak out because a bath and some scrubbing will remove all traces of that flamingo in no time. Unlike when your toddler finds red lip stick and tags everything, including their face and your new couch.

I feel like my want of a tattoo has evolved over time. Like the blooming of a flower, it has grown and changed and died over the course of the twenty years that I have been of legal age to walk into a parlor and have an artist give me a permanent stamp. In high school there was this girl named Sarah that I was loosely acquainted with, she was a year older, pretty, always pushing the envelope of what was socially acceptable at our age and for the smallish town that we lived in. She was edgy. What I'll always remember about her is that she couldn't wait to turn 18 and get a tattoo, and she wanted to work at Hooters in college. If you've got it, flaunt it. Right? So she turned 18 and got that tattoo, a dainty set of pale blue angel wings on her back. (And I'm pretty sure she landed that job at Hooters a few years later.) The wings were stylish and feminine and it totally made me want to get some ink of my own. I remember after high school graduation it was one of those topics that always came up. Talking to co-workers and friends about what they would get, and where?? Apparently we were all wanted to flaunt the fact that we were old enough to buy cigarettes. I didn't ever get one.

Fast forward to my college years. Some of my girlfriends moved away to go to school and one of them got a tattoo while she was there, a tiny ring of flowers (like a toe ring) around her toe. What?! Her mother was the conservative type so I always wondered how that went over when she came home to visit. Probably about the same way that my mom would have taken the addition if I'd have done something similar. "You did what?!"

Next while still in college I dated a guy that had a chain tattooed around his arm, pretty cool I thought, for a skinny 19 year old. I don't think I ever asked but I'm assuming it was an event similar to Sarah's, turned 18 and went to get some ink- because he could. Kind of a right of passage of sorts, from childhood to adulthood. I think in those years there was a lot of me that felt the same way. I never got one.

I grew up, got married and the conversation with friends changed. We were in our twenties- hello! Legal adults now, married and having babies and mortgages. My tattoo wants changed too, from the wanting to do it because I could, to wanting to do it because it would be a pretty addition to the top of my foot. You see, one of my other childhood friend's older sisters got an attractive and colorful flower design on the top of her foot and you know how we all look up to big sisters. It reminded me of a large Hawaiian flower or Hibiscus that I grow in my backyard. It really was cute, that is something that I probably would have done. I never did, I mean really, those years are all about just surviving. Some of the happiest, never have a second to yourself, sleepiest years of my life. Four pregnancies, four C-sections, one preemie, four toddlers, four potty trainees, one Labrador, three houses and always a hot mess!

Now here we are, 39, and my 30s so far have been the busiest years of my existence. Although everyone except the cat sleeps through the night at our house now, there is so much go, go, go. Nap time disappeared as the babies grew, now it's just keeping track of who's house they're at, dishes, laundry, homework, work schedules, game schedules and so much cooking. Teenagers are hungry! All. The. Time. Your life is still not your own, but it is so wonderful to watch your kids learn and grow into what you hope will be good, kind, responsible members of society.

So, my tattoo wants have changed and morphed and matured too as my life has changed so much over the years. These days I am grateful every day for my husband and all that we have survived together. That he still comes home to me, that we stuck it out, that we're still friends, that we are still crazy in love. So now, I am at the point where my tattoo would be a symbol of gratitude, just his name. Three letters that I can't live without, on the inside of my wrist, simple and curvy and always visible. I turn 40 next year, maybe that's what I'll give myself.