Life changes. Tattoos don’t.

A while ago I noticed my large back tattoo in the mirror and was a little surprised it was there. It’s been about 15 years since I got it, and I’m not sure that it fits with my current life as a suburban mum.

Do I regret it? Would I remove it if I could? With the clarity of hindsight, I took another look at why I got it in the first place…

For me, a tattoo represented being part of a certain type of club. A group of people who didn’t care what others think, who could deal with pain, who had a rebellious streak. Oh that’s right, there’s a word for that: bad-asses. My 21-year-old self loved the idea of signing up to the bad-ass club.

I was also a design student and tattoos were cool amongst the design crowd (and still are — I hope!). They’re an expression of our love for colour, line and form. Plenty of famous designers had tattoos and I saw it as a show of commitment to visual expression.

At that age I was also collecting life experiences (good or bad) like a fanatic hoarder. I wanted to experience everything for myself before forming judgements. I was curious about how it would feel to get a tattoo, and how my body and mind would respond to the pain. (My response was: It was satisfyingly fascinating, but I felt no desire to do it again.)

So there’s three perfectly good reasons to get a tattoo: to be a rebel, because they look pretty, and to see what it feels like. Hell, some people barely have one of those reasons (drunk people, I’m looking at you). But there was another reason that took me from wanting a tattoo, to actually booking it in.

(Trigger warning — this paragraph mentions suicide)
My boyfriend at the time had a mental illness. One day he tried to take his own life — something that took me completely by surprise. I was the one who found him unconscious. I called an ambulance and waited with him until he was taken to the intensive care unit. He had burns on his head and torso and a collapsed lung. I had not seen it coming at all, and the shock and trauma of that experience meant my view of the world was permanently shifted.

Because of this experience, the idea of permanently altering my appearance was appealing. A tattoo would help me bridge the gap between how I felt inside and how I looked on the outside. I had changed internally, but I still looked like the same fresh, innocent, 20-year-old. I wanted my body to tell this story. I wanted some scars.

So now, 15 years on, how do I feel about being a tattooed suburban mum?

I’m still a designer but less interested in being a part of anyone’s club. And I still consider myself a rebel, but I don’t care if anyone knows it (is that the elite level of bad-ass?).

I like having my tattoo as a reminder. It’s a physical mark of my history — that I’ve lived a life before I got to this stage of my life. And that life was full of all kinds of experiences. Maybe all I do these days is school drop-offs and loads of washing, but when I get a glimpse of my tattoo, I remember there’s more to me — and more to life — than just that.

If you’ve enjoyed reading this, check out more of my (free) Medium articles here: A little bit about me and my writing.