Super Sonic   +  stuff that makes me happy

Ink- Part Two

I think I'll begin this post by saying- I'm not an idiot, I know that this is revealing my children's names. After thinking long and hard about that.... I'm OK with it. Partly because their names have been used repeatedly in the print media, with my permission, and they are easy enough to find if someone is looking hard. I will continue to use their pseudonyms when I speak of them. Why? Not sure. It just feels right.

As I said, I'm OK with that. It's a choice I've made, and not what I'm writing about today.

***

I love my new tattoo.

It's been ten years since I suffered through getting Jiminy Cricket, my first tattoo. And I'm booked in for another one, on a day later this week. An early birthday present, a Shakespeare quote. I'll tell you all about it soon enough.

But I think that will be enough ink for me another few years at least. I'm not sure why, I think that's just the way it works... an itch has been scratched, and it will be a while before it irritates me enough to bother it again.

***

Tony was covered in tattoos- arms, back, chest. I've mentioned before the inscription he had done after we were married... "Ad infinito, in infinitum" From the beginning, to infinity without end.

The designs he had for our children, they looked like this...

And that's what I have now, too.

He made me promise so many times I'd never have his name tattooed on me, he had seen that act of devotion go wickedly wrong, and so had I. I promised, and meant it, and kept it. The letter 'T', it feels even better, more of a secret, more real... it reminds me that he was mine.

***

I am too damn skinny and sometimes I see a flash of my tattoo, dark on pale skin, against the fraility of my arms and I picture Amy Winehouse in my head.

In the Before I never would have dreamed of getting a tattoo somewhere so visible, which is why I think I left it so long, to be sure I wanted it where it is.

And, as I said, I love it.

Catching that flicker of darkness, sometimes, it makes me feel marked, like some kind of permanent scarlet letter.

As bizarre as that sounds, there is certainly power in it, and I soak it up, drink it... being visually marked with this difference that has sat inside me, unseen, for so many months now. There's power in that, in giving physical pain a marker that the whole world can see.