When I was growing up tattoos were taboo; you only had them if you were a thug or had been to prison. Sometimes it was both; you were a thug with tattoos, then you were picked up by the police and became a thug with prison tattoos. Tattoos were looked down on because people could not comprehend permanently marking oneself for all eternity and, at first, I had agreed.
Then, I met my husband; we fell in love, he went to war and came back with a single tattoo—a single word on his bicep. I hated that word the moment I had seen it. I asked him how he could mark himself like that, without a thought on how it would look later. He had laughed and said, “At least I came back alive Carole.”
And at that moment, I realized he was right. Who cared that he had a tattoo? My husband was back from war ready to start our family, and at that moment, tattoos became something that meant being alive. I still believed tattoos were taboo but was warming up to them.
Then, my daughter met her boyfriend, and tattoos became a way to express oneself. Her boyfriend was not covered but had enough tattoos that you knew they were there. When I asked him what one of them meant, he had said, “Well, I am scared of clowns, and I got a tattoo to remind myself they are not anything to be scared of.” I thought about that conversation many times after because that is when I realized tattoos didn’t have to have a big meaningful meaning attached to them. They could just be appreciated as the art they were. I could never see myself getting a tattoo, but I began to see them as the art they were intended to be.
Then, my daughter had her children, and my views on tattoos changed again. My eldest granddaughter got her first tattoos in honor of my late husband: two flowers to honor the time they would spend in the garden, and I loved it. The tattoos reminded me of my husband, and I felt a mixture of happiness and sadness every time I saw her tattoos. She didn’t stop there though. About nine in a half months later, she now has about 20 tattoos.
When I asked her why she got so many so fast, she had said, “I had all this money in my savings granny, and I’m a senior in college. If I don’t get these tattoos now when will I get them? They make me feel nice about myself, so why not?”
And after this conversation, I concluded that tattoos were a thing that helped my granddaughter learn to love herself, and I have loved tattoos ever since.