Why?

Someone saw my leg tattoo for the first time yesterday and asked me, skeptically, if I really liked it? Why did you get it? How old were you? It was almost like they thought of it like some kind of mistake, a defect, a sign of my crazy perhaps?

First and foremost, I LOVE IT! I will always love! It might be silly to consider a tattoo as having "meaning". It isn't a name, it isn't a love...its a ME! A went with me a many number of years ago to get it. It took several hours of having my ass slightly exposed to this creepy guy that wouldn't go away. My artists did a good job of keeping me blocked and eventually told the guy to go away. It HURT! I was emerging from devastation, I was learning to be me, moving on, moving up, changing, struggling, coping...I could go on and on about the emotions of that time. Some of them still challenge me. My dragon leg (that's what A and I called it) was my kick-ass symbol. My "no matter what you will keep moving" and the next time someone gets in your way you can kick them with your dragon leg! It reminds me to be fierce, to not back down, to not give in to the fight. This sounds very melodramatic, even to me, but it is what it is.

I wasn't a young kid when I got it, I wasn't drunk. I didn't walk in and pick it out of a catalog. I searched for just the right one. I decided I wanted it to be dramatic and all black...nothing frilly and girly about it. Sometimes I forget it is there and I will catch it in the mirror when I am getting ready in the morning and I remember what is it.

Thankfully it isn't for anyone else. No one has to love it, understand it, want to look at it. Good thing too because again, it was almost like I was suddenly deformed. Suck it! That dragon and me are in it for life. When I am 85 and he and I are a wrinkly mess I will still remember what its for. Some people may not need a reminder but I like to have one. One that is just mine...one that will never leave...my constant reminder to kick ass and to hell with the names!

Well....that was Valentine's Day worthy! :)