At A Glance
Author	micehell
Contact	micehell@bme.anon
IAM	micehell
When	N/A

I feel like it's about time I write a story about being tattooed. I love being tattooed, but it's ironic because when I was younger, I was really against being tattooed. So how did it all happen, you ask? It's been the evolution of me.

When I was 17, I met the man I would marry and divorce within 7 years. These were the
days when my depression was almost completely unbearable. I saw the world in black and
white instead of color. After we were married, he got a tattoo, a very lovely cloud and
rainbow thing and I liked it on him. From that moment, he tried to convince me to get one
as well, but I wouldn't have any of it. I was in the military way back then and I was
conservative and afraid of what people thought of me. I was too unhappy to express
myself in any way that might have me looked down upon. I was always striving to have
people like me and being tattooed was not the way for me to get what I wanted.

After 7 years and the divorce, I spent another 4 years of complete misery before finding a
very kind psychiatrist who told me I needed medication. After one month of medication,
the world changed before my eyes from black and white to full and glorious color. It was
as if a fog had lifted and I could see clearly for the first time in my life. I became pregnant
with my second son that year and I was extremely happy. I resigned from the military,
came home, got a job in my hometown and had my baby. Life was grand and I felt like
celebrating. I was 28 years old and, for the first time, entertained the idea of getting a
tattoo.

That 1st tattoo is covered up now by another, but was very significant because it was the
beginning of a new era in my life. It was really the beginning of my life. The old me was
dead and buried and the new me was just bursting to get out and live, to make up for all
the wasted years of sadness and regret. I was having all the fun I should have been having
all along and I was making up those years with a vengeance. The guy who tattooed me
that first time warned me that they are addictive. And he was completely right. I've been
getting tattooed regularly ever since that first time.

I started out by getting tiny little flash pieces I thought were cute, dipping my foot into the
water to see how cold it was and slowly stepping in further and further until I was in up to
my eyeballs. Every tattoo I have is symbolic to me in some way, good and bad. I've let
other people tattoo me and I've tattooed myself and if I were to have my own gun I'd be
completely covered.

If you would have told me fifteen years ago how tattooed I would become, I would have
scoffed at the notion. I have changed that much. Every tattoo I get makes me feel more
beautiful, more alive, more myself. How do you explain that to somebody who isn't
tattooed? It's like asking why the sky is blue or if God exists or why we're born and why
we die. It's just life and how I choose to live it.

I love myself enough now to not care what others think of my appearance. When I look in
the mirror, I see me and I am happy with the way I look. I don't care how people will
view me when I'm old. The only opinion that matters is mine. I am all I have and the
people who truly love me accept me and love me as I am. Everything is relative. To
tattooed people, I am hardly tattooed and to people who aren't tattooed, I am extremely
tattooed. Who cares?

I am 40 years old this year and I have so many more ideas for art in the future. People ask
me when I'll be done getting tattooed and I can safely say now, I won't be done until the
day I die. We only get this one life we know of . Shouldn't it be the very best life we have?
I am a good, decent, loving person and I am proud and happy to be me and tattoos have
let me show the world just how wonderful and happy I am. I am grateful everyday for
finding BME and the modified community because I have found a family which
understands me and doesn't judge me by my appearance and always supports my right to
be me. How lucky is that?