If my life were a book, I am fairly positive that I would begin with my tattoo. My first tattoo.
The butterfly that was etched into my left ankle as a present for my 22nd birthday was meant to illustrate a rebirth, an emergence of a new person, a new woman. It was a gift from my boyfriend of a month. He went with me and looked through books of pictures and forked over $60 and watched as my leg was scarred black. It was bliss.
I got my tattoo the day that I met Isaiah. It was meant to be a permanent reminder of the day that I met the boy who would become my stepson. Isaiah had just turned one. He scared the dickens out of me. I didn't want to let on, of course. I wanted Nick to see me with his child and marvel at how wonderful I was, what a fabulous stepmom I would be. In reality, I had never been around babies very much, certainly not little boys. I had no idea what I was doing.
Luckily for me, Isaiah was laid back even as a baby. He made things easy because he just took to whomever was willing to play with him. I didn't realize at the time that things could have been much harder.
So, on December 22, 2000, I met my future stepson in the morning and I went to a tattoo parlor in the afternoon. As you do.
Truthfully, I wanted a butterfly on my ankle because I love the movie Son-in-Law and in it she gets a butterfly tattoo on her ankle. But I am a writer and I do love a narrative, so I easily created one: I was changing, transforming, metamorphosizing into someone new. I was leaving a young girl behind and emerging as a whole new being, my first step on a road that would lead to my becoming a wife and a stepmother.
Nick played along because he always does. He gave me a birthday card in which he wrote, "Tattoos are forever and so is my love for you."
I couldn't look at my tattoo without remembering that.
I know it's stupid. I know in my head that he meant it at the time. I know that neither he nor I could have imagined that there would come a day when everything would turn so inside out and backwards. It all seemed so straightforward at the time. I loved him, he loved me, we were becoming a family.
I could even have spun a story in my head that Nick does still love me, just in a different way. But somehow, the butterfly just needed to go. It took awhile for me to be okay with that feeling. I love Isaiah exactly the same as I always did. He is the girls' brother (and he is a wonderful and patient big brother). Ultimately I know that Isaiah knows that I love him even if I'm no longer technically related to him.
Getting a tattoo as a 37 year old woman was a completely different experience than getting one as a besotted 21 year old girl. First of all, I did all of my research ahead of time, looking at all kinds of tattoos to decide what I wanted. I asked my friend Shawna, who has a wicked cool tattoo on her shoulder, where she got it. She led me to Jenn Seigfried of Red Rose Tattoo in Zanesville. I emailed Jenn with pictures of my tattoo and ideas for what I liked, and then I met with her to discuss what was possible. I found her to be super nice and friendly and loved her artwork.
It all felt most grown up.
And so, last night I went to a tattoo parlor after work. I cannot begin to describe how much I love what Jenn was able to do with my general ideas about what I wanted.
It is a large tattoo. It is much bigger than I felt at all comfortable with, but as I sat there, I realized that it was exactly what I needed. I am making a statement with this tattoo. This tattoo is not about being crazy in love and excited to do something that no one would expect me to do. This tattoo is telling a story, my story, and it is telling it loudly. I will be proud to be a grandma with this tattoo on her leg.
My transformation this time is not a complete and total changing of my being. The butterfly represented a whole new me, someone frankly that I barely even knew. She was so excited by life. I have always described meeting Nick as winning the lottery. And even at this end of the story, I would describe it that way. Meeting Nick led to absolutely every dream I ever had coming true. I have discovered as an adult that not everyone has what I had, has been as contented and happy as I was, even if it didn't last a lifetime. I wouldn't trade what I had even knowing how much pain there has been living through my marriage ending.
So my transformation this time is not that of a whole new being. My transformation this time is about evolving, emerging from one existence into another, still carrying all of those memories, all of those feelings, but bringing it forward in a new (and hopefully better) way. The best way to illustrate that was with a flower. A rose, because I love roses. The seed that began is still there, underground, but it has blossomed into something that it didn't even realize that it was capable of becoming.
The key is actually part of a story that I've been writing for most of my life. Maybe someday it will find a life somewhere other than the inside of my head.
While she was working on the tattoo, Jenn said to me, you know, the old tattoo is still there. And I hadn't thought of it that way. And that brought such peace to my heart that I really hadn't expected. The butterfly is still there. That Joy is still a part of me, a part of who I bring to the world. She is just absorbed into something bigger, something that she never expected, something that she didn't know she was missing. She was so happy and contented to be Nick's wife. It was the culmination of her dreams. And now I am so thrilled to see how much more there is to who I am. I would never have asked for the life that I have been given, but in the past few weeks I have somehow discovered that I have been given an opportunity to figure out who I am outside of the definition of wife. It's the most freeing thing that I have ever experienced.
I don't mean to make light of my marriage. I wouldn't be who I am without it. But I had been allowing myself to be surrounded by darkness because of it ending, instead of realizing that it wasn't an ending, it was a beginning. My grief has given way to light. It's just the most profound change I've ever felt in my life.
Lastly, there is an E in the middle of the rose, and an F in the middle of the key. For Elizabeth (Betsy) and Felicity. My life. My loves. No matter how I change and evolve from this unexpected turn in my life, they are rooted within me. Where they led, I will follow. Always.
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