Life In Tattoos

September 24, 2009

I have a friend who has 49 tattoos. I am not kidding you. She has 49 tattoos and they are beautifully displayed across her arms, back, backside, ankles and other places I haven't asked about. But they are hers and she loves them. 

I am not a tattoo person in general; meaning I have never gone out and paid for a tattoo. But I have one. Actually I have three. They are the pinpoint pricks the radiation oncology group had to put on my smooth white chest after my double mastectomy and chemotherapy treatments were over. They were the safeguards to help the technicians on board to shoot my chest through with radiation in a few days not to miss the right spot; if they did they could harm my heart. So these spots on my chest needed to be as precise as any dot on any map, and they needed to never ever move. My life depended on it.

That was 5 years ago, and I feel wonderful today, and I just bumped into my friend with the 49 tattoos this week. She is my childhood chum and we come in and out of each other's lives quite inconsistently through the years, but we intersect nevertheless. And I am grateful: there is nothing like a childhood friend, I don't care how different our lives become or how not-often we see one another. She is still so very important to me and I guess always will be.

So as we were talking, she told me she'd added these last 2 tattoos and she showed them to me: they were a lighthearted homage to her mom and dad, whom I know and like very much. One said something in Latin (her dad is a lawyer) and the other is a line that her mother is known for saying: life is not neat. 

Now I'd heard her mom say those words quite often during my childhood. She said it over and over as a way of reminding herself and her children (and their friends) that our paths in this world can often be confusing and difficult but just as easily can be exciting and rewarding and full of adventure and growth. So you have to try to succeed, you have to rise to the occasion and see how far you get. And if it ain't pretty, or neat, just sweep it up (my friend's tattoo comes complete with a broom) and move along to the next thing life has in store.

I remember those words all the time in my life, in fact I quoted them and their originator just a week ago when something wasn't right and needed to be resolved; so it was great to see her widsom inked out on the arm of her daughter, my ol' pal.

And then I pulled down my neckline to reveal my little spot and said with mock defense, "Well remember I have a tattoo, too." We both smiled and she looked at my little blue dot and looked up at me and I said, "the technician who put it on me said it's the world from far away." 

But in a way I realize now that my tattoo also says the same thing my friend's tattoo says: life is not neat. Stuff happens. But when the going got tough, you have to grab your broom and start sweeping. Now I tell my kids the very same thing. You gotta keep on going, life can be messy sometimes, but that's normal. Just keep sweeping. 

And so far I've found that if I sweep it up the right way, hold on tight to my broom and keep up with people who make me smile, especially my old friends with 49 tattoos, then life, neat or not, is well worth it