Why would you put a bumper sticker on a Bentley? This is a remark that I have heard people say when asking another why they have tattoos or piercings and it shocks me every time. I now have four tattoos and seven ear piercings. Let me start off by saying that I don’t regret any of them, and I did not get any of them to rebel against societal norms or piss off my parents. I know that’s an easy excuse for a lot of people to put onto others, but 99% of the time, it’s just not the truth. I knew I had wanted to get a tattoo since I was sixteen years old. Now at that point, I didn’t know what or how many, I just knew it was in my future. As my 18th birthday got closer I had a bunch of ideas about what I wanted, but I ended up getting a small mountain range on my ribs. Yes it was expensive, and yes it was painful, but it was worth it. With just one tattoo on my ribs, I wasn’t yet worried about how society was going to view me now that I had ink permanently on my body forever. Soon enough I wanted another one, and another one, and another one, and now here I am with four tattoos, and I don’t plan on stopping.
I haven’t gotten the best responses from the people around me though. Sure people my age think they’re cool and stuff, but I’m the kind of person that usually looks for the approval from adults when I do something. And that I did not get when my tattoos became more obvious on my body. “Now why’d you do that to your beautiful body?” they’d ask, and I never had a satisfactory answer, but I guess I’m never going to have a satisfactory answer, and that’s okay. I like tattoos because they are a conversation starter. Even if they start a hard conversation. I read a Johnny Depp quote about tattoos recently that said: “My body is my journal, and my tattoos are my story”. This quote is a huge reason why I am proud of all my tattoos and I don’t feel any shame in having them, even though they could unfortunately change my future.
I believe that having tattoos adds a little something to me as a person, and I can decide whatever that little something may be. I also feel like they make me a part of a community. I am proud of each of my tattoos because they all have different meanings and memories connected to them. So to my parents, I didn’t get them to piss you off; to my friends, yes they hurt, but don’t be afraid to get one; to my future boss, you’d be making the biggest mistake of your life if you don’t give me this job just because you can see one of my tattoos peeking through my shirt; to the guy that will hesitate to pick me up at the bar one day, they’re not meant to intimidate you; to my possible children, I hope society has changed enough to where strangers don’t judge what’s on your mother’s body; and to myself, you’re rockin’ those tats girl.
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