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My ninth tattoo was the most painful. The needle dug into my wrist on the first day of September. I wasn’t prepared as I thought. I winced, grimaced, and stiffened through the process.
My tattoo artist, Brooke, was as delicate as she could be. She encouraged me to take breaks. She warned me before the intensity. Through small talk about where I was from, what I did for a living, and what my plans for the week were, she tried to distract me. There’s nothing she could have done.
I was raised Catholic. When I was in high school and went through a depressive period, I was encouraged to talk to the priest at our parish.
“I feel like God is watching the game,” I said. “And his wife just reminded him to check in on me.”
He thought the visualization was hilarious.
Over time, my relationship with my spirituality and religion has evolved into a natural and beautiful thing, blended with belief, hope, and attempts to be the best version of myself. However, I’ve struggled with forgiveness and patience. A year or so ago, God canceled his Hulu subscription and decided it was time to do something about it.
The most difficult yet rewarding lessons to learn are usually the most uncomfortable. Change doesn’t happen overnight but through a series of challenges.
For me, it came from an opportunity disguised as a setback.
My first tattoo was a feather. Titled after a Radiohead song (just like a feather), the tattoo was meant to symbolize some advice given to me — to be light on my feet. Not to take things too seriously. To move through life like water. To keep going forward. It didn’t hurt, and I got it on my 21st birthday. The tattoo artist gave it to me for free.
My second tattoo was on my finger. I was in a serious relationship then and got it done on my ring finger. At first, it was supposed to read “Love.” Just before the needle hit my skin, I told the artist to wait.
“Put loved,” I said. Somehow, I had the foresight to put it in past tense.
It was probably during a commercial break.
My third tattoo, an arrow, resulted from a (slightly) drunken night in Austin.
“You wanted to get a tattoo while we’re in Texas, right?” a friend asked as we walked down the street.
“Oh yeah,” I said, veering left into a tattoo parlor.
The arrow didn’t heal right. It resembles a burn or a scar and is at the top of my right wrist. Some would say it looks like a brand.
My fourth tattoo was a bird.
I got it on the same arm as the arrow, and I got it when I started to travel alone. I felt free and flighty and wanted to go as far away as I could. It’s a large swallow, symbolizing what sailors used to tattoo on themselves to show how many nautical miles they had traveled.
My fifth tattoo was a mountain range and coordinates.
The coordinates were for a town in Iceland. I had hitchhiked there years ago and almost got stranded. I asked God for help then. Shivering and holding up a sign that I needed a ride, I prayed for a warm bed and a beer. Not minutes later, a car pulled over and drove me within an hour of my destination. They invited me to stay over and gave me a beer.
My sixth and seventh tattoos were a set of trees and a lemon.
I don’t remember which one was first.
The tree tattoos were done in Iceland. Fearing a costly Uber, I walked nearly a mile in a foot of snow to the tattoo parlor. I’m lucky I didn’t get frostbite. I sketched the trees: a dogwood, a redwood, and an oak. Each has significance.
The lemon was done in Durham, North Carolina. I was going through it at the time, and in solidarity with a friend, we tattooed lemons on ourselves as a bat symbol, a call to action. We were also listening to Beyonce’s Lemonade album religiously.
My eighth tattoo was the word “writer.”
I got the “writer” tattoo in Wilmington. I wanted a permanent reminder that I was more than a marketer. I never wanted another moment of my life where I didn’t remember that.
The ninth and most recent tattoo is of a tiger lily.
I didn’t want to get another tattoo for a long time. People often ask how I decided to get each tattoo, and I don’t have a good answer. I simply know when it’s time. In this case, I couldn’t get tiger lilies out of my mind. One of my favorite flowers, they symbolize everything that is wild, creative, natural, and untamed. They bloom around my birthday in July. When I think of them, I think of my hands in the dirt.
There’s a quote I’ve seen and heard several places about not knowing that I am a seed. I finally understand it because I have been in the dirt. There was purpose in it all, and with that acceptance, I have finally bloomed.
