A Story of Two Tattoos...

My first foray into the tattoo world happened when I was 21, a tiny little pair of stars in negative on my right wrist that represented my children. Five years would pass before I found something that meant so much I would indelibly ink myself again, in the form of a man who entered my life and turned it upside down in such a way that I would never be the same. In the living room of the tiny loft apartment that became our first home, I received my second from a friend who moonlighted as a tattoo artist and watched Mike get a matching one that covered most of his arm.

Several months later, after the sweetest proposal in history, we went together and braved the gun once more to get what are most likely universally regarded as the worst possible tattoos in terms of longevity - the other's name (along our hip bones on the right side) and wedding bands in the form of roman numerals of the day we would marry.

Fast forward a few months more, roughly a year from that second tattoo, and enter a conversation that was taking place in the early morning between two trainers, one of them me, and their clients. These clients know each other quite well, both of them being rather wealthy business men who's paths cross frequently in their professional life, and they like to talk through their workouts in the morning as I and the other trainer lead them through their sets. On this particular morning, the conversation was about a bet that the other trainer's client had made with him, that if he got two tattoos before the end of the month was out, his client was footing the bill. I made an offhand comment about wanting the job perks of the other trainer, to which my client quickly responded that he was putting the same on the table to me - two tattoos, my choice, his treat. How in the world could I say no to crossing yet another item from my list?

You see, at this point, every tattoo I'd received had revolved around someone else, albeit, important people who I dearly love. I wanted a tattoo that was all mine, one I dreamed up and wasn't focused on someone else. And that combination of events is how I ended up a week later at Eternal Ink under the soft hands of Bre. Using Mike's name on my hip bone as a guide, she very carefully took all of my ideas and combined them into a dual piece that covers each of my hipbones, up onto my sides.

The first piece on my right side is all black, a simple but beautifully done bird cage with the door wide open, standing empty. Beside it, in a font design all mine, read lyrics from one of my favorite Coldplay songs. It's a song that I identified with very strongly not so very long ago, one that perfectly encompassed the overwhelming feeling that I was drowning in my own life. You see darling, from the outside, that cage is beautiful. And so, I suppose, was my life, from an external perspective - a new construction home that I'd designed, nice cars and trappings inside that house, two beautiful children with a perfectly adoring husband and the American dream right down to the weekly Saturday barbeques with all the neighbors. When you're the one behind the locked door, however, the view can be very different indeed. And for me, it was a perfect life that didn't resemble me at all. I can see that woman now, cooking a perfect Thanksgiving dinner in her perfectly clean kitchen with her new appliances, outwardly content and happy with all she's acquired - and inwardly screaming in pain as she went through the motions of her life. In time, she found she could no longer force a smile on the outside and she flew that cage, and so it stands empty and dark.

On the other side I now wear my first full color tattoo. Beside the stark black of the first it looks quite different - somewhat like my life now looks when you hold it next to that first picture. This one depicts a butterfly mid flight. She's a little tattered looking after that business with the cage, but still she keeps flying. A rope twines around her and Michael's name, joining them with a compass and an anchor. I've learned some lessons from what I've come to think of as my first life; one of the most important being that you can share someone's life and let them influence yours without losing yourself in the process. I used to think that love meant giving yourself up to become one inseparable unit, a kind of blurring where you couldn't tell where the one ended and the other began, but I understand now that the best kind of love is shared between two individuals who choose to touch but not completely merge, satisfied to share life together as two unique halves of a whole. Not long after we'd started dating, I saw a quote that stuck with me, "Be the one to guide me, but never hold me down", hence the compass and the anchor. In this second life, I'm tethered to Mike (figuratively here, with his name), but it's a choice I freely entered into. I know that he will support me, guide me, love me - and never, ever make me feel that I've flown one cage for another.

Amsterdam - Coldplay

Come on, oh my star is fading
And I swerve out of control
If I, if I'd only waited
I'd not be stuck here in this hole

Come here, oh my star is fading
And I swerve out of control
And I swear I waited and waited
I've got to get out of this hole

But time is on your side
It's on your side now
Not pushing you down and all around
It's no cause for concern

Come on, oh my star is fading
And I see no chance of release
And I know I'm dead on the surface
But I am screaming underneath

And time is on your side
Is on your side; It's on your side now
Not pushing you down, and all around
No it's no cause for concern

Stuck on the end of this ball and chain
And I'm on my way back down again
Stood on a bridge, tied to the noose
Sick to the stomach

You can say what you mean
But it won't change a thing
I'm sick of the secrets
Stood on the edge, tied to the noose
But you came along and you cut me loose

You came along and you cut me loose
You came along and you cut me loose

Random Wedding Shots

The following are my absolute favorite shots from the wedding, a hodge podge of behind the scenes and on, caught off guard and posed. A little photo heavy, but considering I ended up with over 800 photos, I think I did well whittling it down to these 20 or so. Enjoy.

:something blue:

:my sensitive boy:

:meet the bride:

:the longest/shortest walk of my life:

:and then i saw his face:

:first kiss:

:attitude:

:my favorite photo:

:the girls:

:the boys:

:they almost dropped me:

:and almost squished him:

:friends:

:our wedding party:

:the lake:

:what bliss looks like:

:officially a family:

:mike's favorite:

:mr. and mrs. mcvay:

:love this one:

:signing the wedding certificate:

:my little cousin elena:

:daddy kisses:

:love:

On the Topic of Soul Mates....

:officially official:

This last week I crossed something off my bucket list I never expected to - marrying my soul mate. This was unexpected to me in several ways. First of all, after failed marriage number one, I told anyone who would stand still long enough that I would never, ever marry again - which goes to show that even the best of us eat our words sometimes. After thoroughly disappointing and hurting someone else, as well as being quite emotionally battered myself, I had no desire to ever again give or receive that kind of pain again. Secondly, I have never believed in soul mates. One person, and only one, put on this earth specifically to be your other half, your perfect match? Nope. Not buying it. I adhered to the idea that each individual had at least a handful of people that they could make a match and live quite happily with given the right circumstances, although I did add that I supposed everyone had a "great love", a person who, out of any other who might come along, was the closest match to their heart. Which only shows, dear one, how lost I was for so long.

I believe my attitude on this subject had something to do with fear. What if you never found that one individual meant for you, or you found them, and then lost them to forces outside of your control? Were you destined then to spend the rest of your life alone? Furthermore, there were also the severe emotional scars from my first marriage. My first husband and I were comrades, we knew how to get along with each other on a day to day basis, how to be fantastic parents together, how to make life work with the least amount of waves - and yet, as good as this all sounds on paper, we never really clicked. So many times I would lie awake at night, looking at the profile of a man I knew so well, and then not all. Our fights, no matter the origin, would always end with me dissolving into sobs, pleading for more emotion, more romance, more connection, while he emotionally retreated faster than the Southern boys after Gettysburg, telling me what I was demanding was the stuff of fairy tales. When I left, I had the strongest conviction in my heart that I would never remarry. See other men? Yes. Maybe someday care deeply for someone else? Sure. Trust another person with my love and sanity and last name? Nope. I never wanted to belong to someone else that way again.

I didn't mean to fall in love with Michael, in fact, at the time, I was doing everything I could to have a completely superficial relationship to get me through the trauma of a divorce. As my coworker and best friend, he was the worst possible candidate for this type of fling. I'd met him when he started working at the same gym as me, and over lunches between clients and long hours at the gym, we'd developed a close friendship. We found early on we were both struggling in our relationships, and that shared bond brought us closer. He was younger than me by a few years, but wise beyond them. He'd packed quite a lot of life experience into his time that most people never experience, and I found a steady shoulder to lean on and sound, meaningful advice in him. He was loyal and kind and smart and funny, and even back then, larger than life to me, but I never once looked at him as anything other than my beloved friend.

And yet, in the way these things do, a normal conversation turned into much more and suddenly, I was in his arms enjoying the best first kiss I'd ever received. I only remember being completely dazed when he pulled away, both of us breathing hard and looking quite unsure how we had become entwined on the floor. I left then, needing some time to think, and promising to meet him later. As I drove around replaying that kiss in my head, true to form, I made a mental pros and cons list why this was a perfect/horrible idea. The only concrete fact I had come to as I drove to meet him that night, however, was that I had to make sure that kiss hadn't been a fluke. And so, in a stroke of brilliance or complete insanity, I told him the truth: I was still married, albeit already out the door, so I couldn't offer anything of permanence. Further, I had no intention of getting serious again, especially this soon, and so this would most likely be a passing affair, destined to end horribly. I finished and waited for my level headed friend to say no.

What I didn't know at the time is that my level headed friend had a streak of impetuosity that was about to seal both of our fates. As he put it to me later, "When I find something I want or love, I put everything I have into it. Also, I jump headfirst into dangerous, potentially terribly ending situations." Completely disregarding everything I had just told him, he asked only one thing: that one night would be just ours, no past relationships, no future pressure, just two people feeling their way through the moment. And feel we did. We stayed awake all night until the dawn, loving and talking and wondering together. I felt like Cinderella, caught up in a night of magic and watching the second hand tick closer to midnight (or in this case, three or so in the morning). As his car drove away I wept harder than I ever had in my life, pulling my own car to the side of the road as the wracking sobs consumed me. I knew it was over before it had ever began, the timing just too wrong, the roadblocks between us insurmountable.

After a few fitful hours of sleep, I woke up to begin my day, melancholy as I fixed my kids breakfast. The day became slowly more unbearable; I could still smell his sweet breath, feel his hands tracing down my back, hear his voice whispering in my ear. Finally, I couldn't take one more moment and, throwing all caution and good sense to the wind, drove as fast as my car would take me to the gym where he was working. As I turned to walk into the office my bravery fled, and I realized I was probably about to have my heart smashed - we had agreed there would be no more to this. Then I turned the corner and saw his face. I knew then what his answer would be when I asked, but I did anyway, practically begging him could we please, please just ride this out a little longer and see where it went?

Where it went, darling, nine short months later, was down an aisle. A rather beautiful outside one surrounded by mountains and trees and a lake. You see, shortly after that conversation I changed my opinion of soul mates. While I still hold that there are probably many people a person can make a go of life with, and probably be quite happy with for the most part, some of us are lucky enough to meet the one person made just for us. Yes, you read it right, made for us. A perfect equal. A love so deep that it surpasses emotion and words and is instead inferred directly onto our soul, completely tangible at an intangible level. And when you become one of the fortunate few who find that kind of love, it just doesn't do to shy away from it. Timing and obstacles be damned, you hold onto it and trust that it will see you through. Because it will, dear one, it will.

:the crow catches his butterfly:

And so, earlier this week, I found myself starting another chapter of the fairytale as I stood beside my best friend and vowed to love him the rest of my life. Having eloped the first time around, this was my first real wedding, and it was perfect. The breeze whispered through the trees and small waves lapped gently behind us. I held his beautiful hands and looked into his eyes as he confidently spoke the vows we had written together, and then held back tears as I repeated them back. After, our closest friends and family celebrated with a barbeque style reception and s'mores around a bonfire. To read more about it, you can go see the wedding website. Suffice it to say here, down to the last detail, it was exactly us. And one more (thought to be impossible) item crossed off of my list.

The Bucket List

I suppose people start blogs for all sorts of reasons - to keep family and friends apprised of their day to day lives, to journal their way through experiments, or maybe simply as an outlet for themselves. For me, this started with the list...my bucket list to be exact.

As I begin this, I am in a transition phase in my life. As a matter of fact, this week marks the nine month anniversary of the most important, and selfish, decision I have ever made - to live for myself. This year I ended my marriage of seven years, went back to school and started a new career, and, quite by accident, met and fell in love with the most amazing individual I've ever met, and subsequently, married again. I also happened to find out I have a condition that seriously limits my life expectancy. Enter the bucket list.

With the doctor's long face fresh in my mind, I took a good long look at my life and realized that all those "things I'll do someday" might not ever get their chance if I kept them on the back burner. While I've never actually seen the Hollywood version (another item to add to my list perhaps?), I knew the gist and slowly began making a hard copy of all those things I'd always wanted to try or learn or see, figuring if it was in black and white there was a better chance those things might actually occur. It's like when I tell my clients to keep a food diary, because your mind will forget those twinkies when you're thinking back over your day, but you can't ignore those extra 400 calories when they're staring you in the face in print. Instead of vague ideas in the back of my mind, I wanted something concrete, something that would remind me every day that there is some new adventure to strive towards.

Somewhere between places to travel and new skills to learn, starting a blog popped up in my mind. Not a totally foreign idea as I've dabbled in blogland before, but the motivation behind this particular idea was stronger than simply chronicling my days. I realized I wanted an account. The same way I wanted a list in black and white, some physical presence I could mark off as I went along, I wanted a place where the details were recorded, where I could look back on the days I start to feel overwhelmed by that impending doom feeling and see the proof that I am still striving toward new goals, still making progress, still living.

And so it starts. You can see the list in its entirety by clicking the tab above. Some of the items are bucket list 101 average, some are very personal to me, a few come in conjunction with my new husband's, and several appear completely impossible. But that's what makes life worth living, n'est-ce pas? Striving towards the next, the new, the utterly insane and downright impossible - I intend to do them all, and leave the record here.