Tattoo Tuesday

I've been to quite a few tattoo parlors in my day. I've seen at least a dozen friends get things tattooed on their bodies - some meaningful, some not so much. Ever since I'd watched the first tat being inked on someone's body, I've always wanted one. I really don't know why. I think it has to do with having something very unique - it's a distinguishing, identifiying characteristic. So why didn't I get one in college when everyone else did? Well, for one thing, it was a major trend - it still is now, but because I am not 21 anymore, trends are less consuming in my everyday life. As an adult, I am not being bombarted with my friends doing the latest flip with their hair or rolling their pants a certain way. As an adult, you do what you want for yourself. It doesn't seem like a "following the crowd" type of decision.

Another reason I never got one then was because I didn't have anything really meaningful I wanted put on my body for the rest of my life. I don't have anything against "cute" tattoos - some of my best friends have "cute" tats. It just isn't ME to have a tattoo of a flower or something on my body. I need my reason to be more than, "I thought it was cute," and at 19 I didn't have many deep meanings in my life. I was smart enough then (thank goodness) to know I shouldn't get one for a guy, and I hadn't gone through anything that I felt needed to be symbolized for eternity on my body.

So why now? My life feels like it hit a turning point this year, that's why. Most of my life I grew up wishing I didn't talk so much, didn't get so excited about things - all in all I wished I could change parts of me that people gave me a hard time about. I also wished I was a boy when I was little. I hated all the icky things that had to happen to me in order for me to become a WOMAN - which I wasn't all that thrilled about becoming. Most of my friends in high school were guys and even in college (and now) I hang out with guys 9 times out of 10 more than I hang with girls. My own husband describes me as a "guy's gal".

The past couple years, however have made me appreciate who I am for my personality as well as my gender. For one, I realized that I connect with people very easily because of my enthusiatic, VERY typical Aries personality. They say Aries people always like to be first, like to be the center of attention, and people like people like that. I was always given a hard time for my loudness (yes, on those email surveys EVERYONE lists me as their loudest friend). But my personality is what makes me the great teacher that I am; it makes me the great leader that I am; it makes me the great friend that I am; and it makes me the great everything else that I am. And to take it a step further, I realized that I would not be nearly as good at my relationships I have with people if I wasn't a woman.

I have looked to my Grandma Jo and my mom as pillars of what great women are and what I want to be without even noticing that they are having a direct effect on me already. My most important relationships are because I am a woman: I am a sister, a daughter, an aunt, a sister-in-law, a wife, and someday (which I came to terms with this fall), I will be a mother. Dang.

So the symbol you see on my neck means two things: it is the astrological sign for Aries and in Egyption hyrogliphics it means woman. Two things that are very important to me. So hopefully, after I get that long explanation out, my mom won't totally kill me. :)