Tattoos Have Magical Healing Powers, A Thank You Note

For me, for all of my tattoos, they will all have deep meaning and easy meanings to explain. You don't want to stand there and explain to every assclown on the street how you got two portraits of your gramma because they remind you that true love does happen, that sometimes what you thought you were meant to do isn't really it, but it opens a path to something better, and that maybe you should take your chance on that shy farmer from the middle of the country. Or explain how you put the word love. With a period on your wrist to remind yourself that cutting isn't the answer, that love will happen for you and you are old fashioned (the font is a typewriter style). No one needs to hear those reasons. Instead, saying you love your gramma a lot, or that you love love, that satisfies most cravings for an explaination. You can always delve a bit deeper, explaining that your gramma is your inspiration for being the best you can be, and that you love writing and you create love with your hands even if you haven't managed to do that permanently with someone in your heart.

This tattoo that I just got, it'll be a bit harder to explain. I'm sure I will get a lot of the ruder comments, as someone has already pointed out to me- it looks like people can visibly walk all over me. I think that comment, that assumption, will always make me angry. I wish tiny feet like the ones I have on my body were around to walk on me, that I helped create the tiny feet that walk all over me. But instead, I have them on me for one main, painful reason. To recongize that I did miscarry, three times in my short life.

I know I'm young. I know I've been through so much that most people twice my age haven't had to endure. It's tough, it's shitty, but it's made me into this strong person that I am so proud of. I'm working on becoming who I know I can be, and I'm fighting to do it on my own terms. It's been in my head though, lately, that I won't have a simple answer for this tattoo. Not that everyone will see it, at least, not until the summer when I'm swimming, but still. Summer isn't that far away.

I asked a friend who knows what I'm handling this weekend, and he said he would think it meant you had three kids, or something. And it's true, in a way. I loved them the second I knew about them, and felt that loss just as hard each time, maybe harder the third time, which is why that footprint is blue and bigger.

I also realised what I'll say when I'm asked why I got three footprints on my body.

Because one day, when the time and person is right, I fully intend on having three kids. And if karma and the fates bestow some sort of luck and appease my desires, the first child I produce and get to keep, will be a boy.

I've had this tattoo for less than five days, and already it's calmed me. I'm still stupid sad and feel... the emptiness that a miscarriage has, but it's not desperate. I can remind myself to breathe through the tough patches, like I'm sure at 6am today I'll have to do. It was at that time, a year ago, that I woke up and knew something was wrong.

I'm shaking, I'm sad, I'm worried about life and what March will bring, but I'm okay. I'll be okay.
I have a lot of you to thank for that. For real. Knowing that you guys read this, however rambly and insane it is some times, it makes me feel like I'm not alone. I'm e-hugging the fucking shit out of you, and warning you now, I may scar your eyes with the tattoo. There's BRA in it, y'all. You've been warned. I may take more pictures later, when it's healed up- right now it's all dry and scabby looking.

Happy Superbowl Day.