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