A Tattoo in Your ThirdThird

Can you get a tattoo in your thirdthird?

When I was sixteen, for my birthday, I wanted my ears pierced. My mother said, “no,” until I brought out my diary and showed her that she had told me months/years earlier that when I was sixteen I could, indeed, get my ears pierced. My appointment was with a doctor and even as I was leaving to get them done, my mother shook her head and said, “Nice girls don’t pierce their ears.” Tsk, tsk.

Funny. She got her pierced years later when pierced earrings were cuter and easier to find than clip-ons.

Remembering that life lesson, when our kids started getting tattoos, I declined to offer an opinion and instead, tried to understand. The first ones were meaningful, I thought. The next ones, understandable. As time passed and tattoos came, I could see ink was a means of expression that could be pretty cool.

I have grown to be interested in ink. I regularly comment on tattoos. I like being open-minded and sometimes surprise younger, often wary individuals when I ask for explanations about a tattoo. As soon as my genuine interest is accepted, I hear some very thoughtful and intelligent reasons behind personal ink.

About ten years ago, I wondered what tattoo I might have gotten IF I WERE YOUNGER when the trend took off. I knew I would not have gotten any permanent ink that didn’t have a deep, personal meaning. No butterfly on my butt, I knew that. But what would I have done?

Three years or so ago, I gave a talk about finding grace the hard way. Watch HERE. In this talk, I said, and I quote, “ IF I were to get a tattoo, and I doubt I ever will since I’m in my thirdthird and my skin is sort of …uh…stretchy…I would get GRACE on my left arm and TRUTH on my right. Because, I am always balancing, counter-balancing Grace and Truth.”

Ha, ha! IF I were to get a tattoo…

The younger women on stage with me that night encouraged me to “do it!” Nah. Too old. But I still talked about it. I repeated that “IF I were ever to get a tattoo…” talk a number of times. Three years of talking about it.

Shelly, a good friend of mine, after hearing my “IF I were to get a tattoo…” chatter often finally told me, “You should get it, or stop talking about it. You’ve wanted it a long time.”

Wise words. But still, not sure. A client at the food pantry I run told me to be careful. She is probably in her 50’s and has a lot of ink. “Be careful to get someone who knows old skin,” she warned me. A Real Estate client of mine brought her mother along to see homes. Her mom has a good 5 or 6 years on me and she had recently gotten her husband’s handwriting as he had signed card to her tattooed on her arm. I admired her spunk.

I was gaining confidence, but still had the “old skin” warning in the back of my mind. I enlisted the help of my son’s girlfriend and she enlisted the enthusiasm of my daughter-in-law and the three of us made a plan of tattoo bonding while I was visiting them in Arizona. With their good connections, they found an excellent artist who happened to be delightful as well as talented. I was a little disappointed (not to be so special) and a lot reassured when she told me I was definitely not her oldest client.

My d-i-l got the tattoo she has wanted for ten years. I got mine that I had been talking about for three. It was a fun and satisfying afternoon.

So, now, at the age of 67-and-a-half I have done it. Done what I said I probably would never do but could not stop wanting to do.

grace, in script and a little bit pretty on my left forearm. truth, in bolder block letters on my right. I am reminded all the time now, that while truth is sometimes easier to state, it can be harsh and a little block-y if not balanced with a kinder and sweeter grace.

In my book, Which Old Woman Will You Be?, I warn us all that as we age, we, 1.) care less what others think of us, and 2.) have less energy to pretend. So when we are old, whoever we are on the inside will ooze out of us whether we want it to or not.