Believe

My friend with cancer wanted to get a tattoo before her surgery so that when she woke up and looked at it she would feel strong and courageous. She knows she’s strong, at least she tells me she is all the time. She also knows that there might come a time when she needs to be reminded that she is indeed strong.

She knew she wanted a tattoo with the word “Strength” on her wrist and ended up going with “without struggle there is no strength.” I think it came out bigger than she thought it would, but she seems to love it anyway.

I have long wanted the word “Believe” tattooed on my wrist. I imagined it in Tiffany blue, but was told by the tattooist that color not outlined in black tends to disperse under the skin after a few years. We discussed outlining in black and the rest blue, but the tattoo I wanted was too small for that. So I went with plain old black and I love it.

The tattoo shop that we went to was FULL of interesting people. The girl behind the desk had long black hair with green bangs. She had EVIL WINS tattooed in gigantic block letters on the back of her legs. She had obviously used the biggest gauges available for her ear plugs and removed them because she stretched out earlobes hung to nearly her shoulders. They wiggle, wiggle, wiggled every time she moved. I was both horrified and fascinated by this crazy looking chick. I’ve never seen ears stretched quite that far and I wondered if they ever got in the way. There was another guy with the plugs IN HIS NOSE. Random freaky people all around. I could have sat there and watched those people all damn day.

After my friend and I left, I asked her if she felt like white bread in there too. Then I said, “I’m surprised they didn’t make you move your minivan from the front of the shop. I’m sure it didn’t do much for their image.”

EN keeps asking why I wanted the word “Believe” on my wrist and it’s been so hard to put into words. It would be easy to say that I believe that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. But if that were the case…

My friend wouldn’t have cancer and about to undergo surgery for a double mastectomy.

EN wouldn’t have crashed his motorcycle on his way to his weekend of debauchery.

The bus monitor from NY wouldn’t have been bullied by a bunch of middle school turds.

There wouldn’t be a gazillion kids starving in Africa.

So it’s not true. Sometimes bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. You just have to have hope that we all end up with what we deserve in the end.

It took a while to put into words what “believe” means to me. I think if you believe something, it will be. Sort of like that old movie, “Field of Dreams”… “build it and they will come.” Believe it and it will happen. Believe in your success and you will achieve great things. Believe that you will fail and you probably will. That’s something I hope to instill in my girls… believe in yourself and do your best. Believe you are amazing…

That’s enough deep shit for now. Lets go back to talking about the freaks at the tattoo parlor. How about the guy that I trusted to put my tattoo on my arm… he was so stoned, offering me a wide variety of munchies to snack on. He laughed at every single thing I said and told me repeatedly how “fucking hilarious” I was. It’s a good thing I’m no precious flower that might be offended by such language.

Then again, if I was a precious flower, it’s not likely that I would have been in a tattoo parlor on a Sunday afternoon… even though my mode of transportation to the shop was riding shotgun in a minivan.

xoxo

Ice Princess