Why I Got My Tattoo

Overcoming my hardships

I have wanted a tattoo for years, but could not figure out what exactly I wanted. I was struggling to make a decision between a picture tattoo, like a globe to represent my love for traveling, or a quote I cherished. After a lot of contemplating, I decided to start small with a quote and save the globe for another time. However, I still had no clue what quote to put on my body permanently. So, I had to keep digging for what was important to me.

My biggest fear in life is not finding happiness, that life will never bring me the contentment I am hoping for. It has brought so much anxiety into my life for the last four years, especially, and has kept me up many nights. My anxiety changed me and recovering from it has reminded me that I need to find happiness even in the darkest of times. When I would get anxious every night, my dad would tell me that happiness doesn’t just come to you, you have to work for it. Because of this, the quote “choose happy” became a mantra in my life. However, I wanted more than that for my tattoo. It was more than just choosing happy because it isn’t that simple. If it were as easy as deciding to be happy, no one would be struggling. I realized it was about strength, too. It was about persisting through every anxiety attack, every panic attack, every sleepless night and every hard day. It was about being strong in order to be happy. That inspired the “be strong / be happy” lettering of my tattoo, but I had been dreaming about my first tattoo for so long; I needed more than just four words.

The lotus flower above the words and right underneath the inner crease of my elbow was probably the easiest decision I made in regards to creating my tattoo. I am an Indian American, meaning I was born in America, but my parents were immigrants from India. The lotus is India’s national flower and has been part of countless Indian art, festivals and other cultural aspects. I used to have trouble accepting my heritage and color, because in Wisconsin, especially, I dealt with a lot of racist comments being thrown my way. I just wanted to look like a “normal” person (aka white). See, I didn’t realize that millions of women were paying hundreds of dollars to reach a skin tone closer to mine or that I didn’t need mascara or lash extensions because my Indian features provided me with that or that when middle school girls were hanging tapestries on their walls, those were Indian designs. I couldn’t see that because it was so difficult to not only accept, but show off a part of me that society kept telling me was wrong. I still struggle with it some days when I see myself next to my white friends who look like they should literally be models for Brandy Melville. 

However, for the most part, I have come to love where I come from and the uniqueness of my culture that cannot be matched anywhere else in the world. Being Indian is something I have come to love rather than be ashamed of and being able to represent that growth with the flower tells me to never go back to hating myself just because of a culture, which is so remarkable and real. Getting the lotus flower above those words is like taking two of the hardest things I have dealt with and turning them into something beautiful and stamping that on my body forever. It is a constant reminder to me that I have and will continue to persevere through everything with a smile.