I have five tattoos. I always knew I wanted some when I was younger, so just days after my 18th birthday, I woke up early and got one. Well, if you want to really know the truth, I showed up at the tattoo parlor about an hour early, running on little sleep and no food. I was barely 18, but I had lived the past year on my own after watching my mother pass away the previous summer. (But that is an entirely different story for another time.) Anyway, I felt ready to make a change. I showed up early, totally not prepared, chose a guy based on him being the first to greet me, and that was that. I was quickly the proud owner of a nickel-sized pentagram on my right wrist. To this day, twelve years later, it remains my favorite.
Over the next five years, I got a larger dragon on my left wrist, and an even larger cat on my lower back – all from the same shop. My next one was a design I drew myself. I had a coworker whose boyfriend had bought a kit and could do a tattoo for a discount. Being that I was about 23, I signed on board almost immediately. The next night, I was tipsy in their apartment, where I had just obtained a deep blue waxing moon-full/pentacle-waning moon design covering the back of my neck. As my hair is long and black, it doesn’t get remarked on much. I tend to forget it is there.
And finally, my new one. I went the with a passage that has haunted me since the first time I read it. It’s always with me and I find comfort in these words. Within the confines of a swirling frame, the the quote fromThe Stand is this:
No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side. Or you don’t.
At the bottom of the tattoo is a little banner with a quote from Hannibal. (The scourge of the Romans, not Anthony Hopkins)
AUT VIAM INVENIAM AUT FACIAM
Which is translated to mean “I will find a way, or I will make one.”
The first is my life. The second is me.
