Why I Wish I Didn’t Have A Semi Colon Tattoo

It is so very strange to be so far from okay. It can be frustrating, it can be emotional, it is inherently a struggle. And I feel it’s only gotten harder with time, rather than easier.

November 15th, 1998.

I’d say that was the day it went to fuckery.

There’s never really been a Remy-shaped hole for me anywhere. I got bullied at school, I struggled at college and at work with always being the person who gets the brunt of someone else’s bad day. You’re immature, you’re weird, you’re not right.

You’re…annoying.

I don’t see anyone else changing who they are.

I’ve tried to be different to the point of not knowing who I really am, or who I want to be.

If you ever bullied me or made me feel small and know that you did, I guess you’re happy. I don’t know if you are or not. I’ve been told that you don’t care. That nobody does. Oh well. I’ve got that mark on my wrist now and it’s because you made me feel so low that I need some ink in my skin to keep me alive.

And I wish it wasn’t there.

I wish I didn’t need to look at it to feel like myself again, whoever that is really. I wish I hadn’t been in so many situations, feeling like I had to be so different, the miserable chameleon, all the while just trying to blend in and disappear. I don’t regret getting the tattoo. Not at all. I just wish I hadn’t had to. I wish that whatever led me to this act hadn’t happened.

What did you do? Did you leave me out? Call me weird? Bully me for having hair that looked like pubes? Make me feel like a plague? Reject me when I loved you? You don’t need a reason not to like someone. But you can’t justify making someone’s life miserable either. The list really goes on. And on and on and on.

Was I just not the right sort of girl? Am I still not? Those boy bands I liked wrote songs about girls. Those girls weren’t me. They were literally every girl but me, it felt like. Were you a boy that found out I liked you? You probably treated it like a plague. Acted like you’d just found out you had a day to live. Treated me like a plague. Called me ugly, because it was really such a bad thing. That I thought I was in love. Am I so bad? Yeah, maybe. Can I help who I fall in love with? Yes, Remy. You can. You can’t fall in love with this boy. Why? Because he’s up here. You’re down there. You have your own dating pool. Stay in it.

You’re not pretty, nor popular, not anyone special at all. Get used to that.

Okay, so challenge me now. Tell me it’s bullshit. I didn’t hurt you like that. Well, you kinda did. Thank you for making me stronger, but infinitely weaker than I could have been. I’m not the happy person I could have been. I don’t trust anyone like I could have learned to. Now I want to be anyone else. Anyone. I don’t really care who. And look at this mark on my wrist, and know. Just know. I know what who did. I know how they made me feel. Am I some sad woman who can’t get over school? No. Glad to be out of the place. I’m a sad woman with memories, of having a really shit time at school. Of just having a really shit time of it. It’s good but not. And I wish none of it had ever happened.

I don’t want to have a semi colon tattoo. But I do. And yet, I really, really don’t.

I originally published this story to Medium on April 18th 2019.