Recently, I stood up in a wedding. I have several tattoos, mostly on my arms, and the dress was sleeveless, so naturally, I got questions. I love my tattoos, though, and am happy to talk about them — shout out to Florence + the Machine, who’s inspired a good four of them — because generally, the questions focus on why I got a specific tattoo, not on why I have so many (unless it’s my grandfather, in which case, I just tell him that I certainly hope they’re all permanent, since they cost so much money).
Over the weekend that the wedding took place, I made a little friend — the bride’s niece, a 13 year-old who needed some company throughout all of the hubbub. So naturally, I talked to her about books, and eventually she asked me about my tattoos.
When I told her the backstories behind each of them, she said a lot of funny things, including “you got so many tattoos, just for a band?? Now that’s how you know the crazy ones.”
But when she asked me why I had so many, I was unprepared.
“They make me feel pretty,” I said. “Good about myself.”
But you shouldn’t need tattoos to feel pretty, she said.
I didn’t know what to say back, so I didn’t say anything.
Well anyway, my body is sacred and while I like a lot of singers, like Justin Bieber, he’s never going to go on my arm.
I laughed. Very witty, this one.
I’d like to think that if she wasn’t 13, I’d tell her the truth. I told her part of the truth, but not all of it. But even if she was older, I doubt I’d have told her why I had them, beyond the fact that Florence + the Machine can make anything beautiful.
The truth is, getting tattooed is the only (relatively healthy) way I can feel like my body is mine. In many ways, my body isn’t, and never has been my own.
I was sexually abused for almost 10 years of my childhood and have since been sexually assaulted multiple times. As a result, I’ve had a long relationship with various types of self-harm that has left me with permanent scars — some are long, white lines, some are dark, thick, and purple, others yet are circular, making me look like a human leopard.
The scars litter almost every part of my body, and they make me feel ugly, not just because they’re there, but because of the knowledge that I caused them and continue to create new ones.
It’s a vicious cycle.
Besides wanting to cover up the scars so that I can tolerate myself and so I can go to the beach without relentless questions about my body (I’ve gotten more questions about my scars than my tattoos), tattoos are my way of rebuilding the damage I’ve done to myself and the damage that others have done to me. Tattoos help me reclaim my body in a way that is permanent. They also deter me from committing further harm to myself, if only to avoid ruining them or having to eventually get a full body sleeve to cover it all up.
I can start to feel like my body is beautiful one piece at a time.
Most importantly, though, getting tattooed helps me feel like my body is mine. Tattoos make me feel unique and more like myself than arguably anything else, besides maybe writing (good thing I do a lot of that too, and if I regret it, I can get rid of it unless Mark Zuckerberg sells it to someone). Since there are a lot of things about my body that I’m unhappy with and can’t immediately control — bodies certainly have a way of rebelling against our inner selves — getting tattoos helps me merge the inner self with the outer self, to breathe this is me.
They’re the only parts of my body that no one has taken from me.
Here’s to rebuilding.
(Thanks, Flo, for helping).
