Tattoos...

I got my first one at 30.  After a few drunken brushes with the art back in the day, my alcoholism acted as a bar from me being tatted up with a black widow spider and other crazy shit that I thought was cool back then.

Then there was a long gap between the first and the next one.  But once I got the next one, there has been a proliferation.  Why?

I think it has taken me a very long time to know who and what I am.  To curate myself into the person I am now.  I know who I am, I know how I am, and while none of that is static, I am a dynamic and ever changing and evolving being. I do know what the fuck is up with me.  And so tattooing has become a natural expression of that.  I know, some people don’t get it at all...but then there are others that absolutely do!

This afternoon I go for my dad tats.  I am getting his date of birth, date of sobriety and his date of death tattooed in a bracelet like form.  And then also a few things he used to say all the time.  It is my way to take him with me everywhere, all the time. To claim his memory and life as part of my own.

Up until now, the only people with marks on my body are my children.  They are inedible imprints on my psyche, my soul and my body.  They hold a prominence.  I mean, how could they not?

But today will be my dad’s turn.  This man that I feel like I only knew a little.  A man I feared at times, loved always and liked only later in his life.  We were two opposing forces, both with wills that would not be subjugated and that caused for a difficult home life.  But recovery also happened to each of us and that brought healing.  A great and sweeping healing, so much so that when he left us on Christmas morning last year, he and I were clean.  We were good. There was nothing left to be said or done. The past was healed.  We were forgiven.  That is what recovery can and will do if you keep at it.  If you keep working the spiritual principles in your life.  Healing, can pave the way for a different childhood and a different relationship. Even when there is so much water under that proverbial bridge, it felt like, for years, we both were just too far gone...but, nope, redemption can come in many forms and at any time.

Today is his day.  He wouldn’t have approved. He and my mom don’t get the whole tattoo thing.  And that is ok.  I totally get why they don’t.  And while this may be a dubious honor for him, this is my way of keeping his memory and life burning brightly in my own life. It is a place of honor.   The landscape of my life and body, holy if to no one else but me.  And he, my dad, has earned a rightful and fitting place etched on the canvas of me.

People have said to me, “um, forever is a long time...” And to them I say, “at 56, it isn’t all that long...”  Others have said, “wait until you are 80, your tats are going to look terrible...”  To them I say, “um, when you are 80, everything sags and looks quite different than what it looked like when you are young...I will not be contained by what the future may do, I am alive today and I am going to celebrate it!”

I lived so much of my early life, allowing you to tell me what was best for me. What was acceptable, what was real and meaningful, who I was and how I felt about things.  Tattoos have been a reclamation of me, for me.  A way that I have taken my body back...from all those who took things from me that were not theirs to take.  And also an amends to myself for all the shitty things I did to it for decades.  Tattoos are an interactive and personal manifestation of my relationship with myself.  I don’t get shit that I think you will think are cool.  I get things that mean something to me, that decorate and adorn me with love and purpose and meaning and spirit.

I get a lot of compliments on my tattoos, mostly from women.  And I always take that as high praise, because while they may like the ink, what they are really saying, I think, is that they love the way I wear them.  They are me.  They are tiny, delicate messages about who I am, what I have survived in this life and what I love most in this life.

I am excited to honor my dad today being totally aware that he would probably not consider this whole endeavor honorable, but this is my life, and my body, and I get to decide these types of things.  And I think, in fact, I know, he would support any reclamation of me that I decide to take on.  Even though we fought like cats and dogs for years...I know he always wanted me to be honorable, good, caring, smart and kind.  And sober.  And I am quite confident today that even though he wouldn’t get the whole tattoo thing, he will be honored that I am willing to commit him to my flesh and spirit and grant him a rightful place on the tapestry that is me.

Again, still...

Not a photo of me and my tats but this was taken last October and commemorate a good day!