Indulgence

a new tattoo

taken from a forwarded text message
Happiness is not so much in having as sharing. We make a living by what we get but we make a life by what we give...

I want a new tattoo. I want something at the back of my arm. I already have 2 tattoos. I want my third one. My body needs to remember some things. In a strange way, that's what the two other tattoos are for. They are there to remember some things.

The first one is what my family and I call a dragonfish. We found it on the chapter breaks of a children's book. Surprisingly, the fish is eel-like, very colourful and with lots of fins; so yes, it's a fish, not just an eel or like some people have thought, a parrot. It's body curves inwards and it looks like a letter "G." How apt! my father thought, while he helped me decide. So that night, 3 of us got our tattoos done courtesy of a friend of my father, paid for by my father. For an hour and a half, I bit a pillow to avoid screaming in pain. While the tattoo artist was very skilled, he had a heavy hand. My back bled for 2 days but the tattoo is beautiful.

Coincidentally, the tattoo came right after my first ever break-up. Things ended badly and I realised a lot of things -- that no matter how the other wants to keep the relationship, if it's over, it's over. We should let go. I was no longer in love and I said it was over but one drunken night later we were back together and I held on because the other wanted to as well. It was all down hill from there. And that was 6 months of torment for my ex. I was no longer in love (and in hindsight, I don't think I ever fell in love) and I realised how my selfishness could hurt so much. I'm not really sure, but I think it had a devastating effect on my ex as hearing my ex cry in the phone and get really pissed at me had a devastating effect on my person. For 3 and a half years after that moment, I didn't see anyone and I abstained from sex. I was 17, 18 when we broke up and it was a truly great fall from a very high pedestal. The fall hurt. I bruised myself greatly.

Other thing I learned? Don't get together with someone you don't love. Sometimes, friendship is not enough because there are things you can tolerate from a friend but you would not tolerate from a lover. We were best friends but were unable to get the ones we wanted and it hurt. So we decided to get together. It was a wrong decision. Big mistake.

So when my dad asked several days later if we wanted tattoos I was eager for it. The pain was humbling but more than that, I never really forgot these lessons. I go to the mirror and peak at the head of the dragonfish looking at me and I will never make the mistake of getting together with someone just because I can't have the one I want. I won't hold on to anyone for my convenience. When one must let go, then we must let go. That's what the dragonfish reminds me everyday.

The second tattoo came a year later or a year and a half later and this too comes with a story and a lesson. Unlike the first one, this one was totally a spontaneous decision on my part. I had fallen in love with a weak person. I spent my every waking hour ensuring that everything my object of affection needed was met. I would carry bags, get water and little snacks and would protect my object of affection from the jokes of people. If anything, my object of affection was untouchable. I had centered my whole life around this person and when this person ended up with someone else, I was crushed.

Near De La Salle University, where I studied, was a studio for a tattoo artist, one of the best, Avatar Arts. I went there on a whim (I think I missed a class for that one) and then stepped in and was lucky enough to find out that he had no appointments, he could take me. So we went through his clearbooks of different designs and I found an elephant drawn in a Japanese-Kanji type of art style. I thought it was cool but I wanted the trunk moving upwards rather than down (there are superstitions regarding the direction of the elephant's trunk in paintings and sculptures). I had it placed on my stomach. The tattoo artist was a master, it barely hurt and it didn't bleed at all.

Previous to that, my Mom, having gone deeper and deeper into a spiritual path that merges Buddhism, shamanism and your own personal religion, had me meet her Shaman/Guru several times and in what session with her Shaman/Guru, I discovered that my power animal is the elephant; which is really cool for me because I really love elephants. I think they are majestic and beautifully gentle creatures who can also be awesome and terrifying when needed.

I had to remember myself. That, as my power animal, I too have the capacity for being gentle and loving and friendly but if need be, I should be terrifying and awesome. As I can lift trees and uproot them to clear a path for you, I can also crush you underneath my massive feet (do elephants have feet or hooves?). I should never have lost myself in the pursuit of love, or anything for that matter. By being subservient (especially since it was not asked of me) I had sunk beneath my worth and lowered my own value. It was a gross display of... of something... It was horrible. It was useless and a total waste of my time. And I had acted like I lost when they got together. It was such a blow to my ego.

The elephant on my stomach reminds me of my power and the amount of what I can do but not to waste it all away on one push; I can be over-whelming as anyone else can be. And love when thrown around in that manner, is a weapon, not a gift. It reminds me that I should never lose my self or my identity on the pursuit of anything -- even happiness.

And last year... I keep talking about last year and all that happened and all that I learned and how much I've grown since then. It needs a tattoo. I need to be reminded of what I've been through. A tattoo, after all, were marks of great victories of the tribes of before. They would scar themselves to show all what they've been through. I wish to do the same. Adorn my body with images of the things that will remind of what I've been through.

Because we are not allowed to forget.

posted by wanggo @ 2:36 PM