Let's all be honest: either you hate tattoos or you love them. There really is no in-between. My entire life I grew up thinking I would never get a tattoo. I was taught that tattoos were a permanent mistake that denoted someone who lacked class and could care less about their body. A tattoo would keep me from getting a job and serve as an everlasting reminder of my ignorant youth. I was taught to hate tattoos, and I did.
Everywhere around me people were getting tattoos. Some were meaningful, some were borderline repulsive and some were just nonsense. I never understood it. Why would someone permanently mark their body with something they loved for a minuscule amount of time at such a young age? I don't know about you, but I change my mind about things almost as often as I change my bed sheets. I wondered about these people waking up at 50-years-old seeing this dream catcher on their wrist and wondering why in the world they made such an rash decision.
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If you know me at all, you know the one phrase that I frequently use to describe myself: control freak. Someone who has to plan out every detail of her life has absolutely no room for permanent mistakes, not to mention my dad would never forgive me. I knew a tattoo was something that would never be an option for me.
I was once a person who thought she knew everything. I thought I knew all there ever was to know and I had everything planned out perfectly. Then, in a span of less than half a semester, my world as I knew it pretty much crashed and burned. All the plans I had made and things I had come to know were falling apart. I struggled as the comfort I was so used to was being replaced by confusion and searching.
One day a good friend of mine sent me a song that he felt would help me gain some peace during my struggle. That song was "Let It Be" by the Beatles. As I cried, I listened to the words of the song and laid in my bed with the song on repeat for over an hour. What I came to realize was that in this life there are so many things out of our control, and I'll be the first to admit that I struggle heavily with this. Many times I forget that this life is not my own, and as I listened to these words again I was reminded that God has a plan for me that is greater than my own. Although my plan may not always be clear, I realized that if I trust in Him, "there will be answer, let it be."
As the weeks passed on I continued the listen to the song every morning before I went to class. Just hearing the words reminded me that my answers were coming and all I could do was try and find solace in the unknown. Some days were worse than others, and one particularly hard day I recall sitting in class anxiously waiting to get back to my room. My notebook was open and I began scribbling the words to the song on an open page. I don't know why, but in that moment it hit me. If I was getting a tattoo, this would be it. It was perfect.
The thought to get a tattoo had never even crossed my mind until that moment, and being the rational person that I am, I decided it would not be smart to make such a permanent decision when I was so emotionally vulnerable. So I went back to my room, I wrote exactly what I wanted the tattoo to look like, and I placed it in a frame on my desk. There it sat for months, and every time I passed I smiled. Finally an opening came, and I made the decision. A few friends and I headed into town, and I did the unthinkable: I got a tattoo. The girl who hated tattoos and swore she was never going to let someone print a permanent mistake on her body had three unalterable words inscribed on her ribs.
One of the reasons I initially hated the idea of getting a tattoo so much was because it served as a permanent reminder. For whatever reason someone chooses to get a tattoo, be it love, success, failure, sadness, etc., that tattoo serves the purpose of bringing back a thought or a memory. In the case of a tattoo that reminds someone of a tough time in his or her life, I wondered why they would constantly want to be reminded of the pain of their past. And for those marking themselves to commemorate love and happiness, did they not understand that unlike a tattoo, those feelings were never going to be permanent? Why force yourself into that situation? Then it hit me.
Life happens. We love. We hurt. When these feelings happen we can either run from them or we can embrace them. I chose to put those words on my body because they reminded me that although life can seem unmanageable, sometimes all you can do is just let go of control and let God guide your path. For some reason I was scared of being reminded of when I was at my lowest, but now looking at the words I see a daily reminder of how letting go made me stronger.
Through what could arguably be one of the toughest years of my life I found peace in three little words. I see those words on my side, and I think about a girl who fought to be where she is today. Those words are a reminder that sometimes we have to be at our weakest to discover how strong we are. Although I got a tattoo when I was hurting, seeing the writing doesn't make me relive that pain; it causes me to remember the strength. That is why I swore I'd never get a tattoo but did it anyway.
