I got a tattoo. It’s a really big deal and I’m going to tell you why.
I don’t do needles. Like, at all. I pass out the second one touches my skin, I refuse to get shots or give blood and I don’t have my ears pierced. Honestly, it’s been a big problem in my life…but that’s a bigger explanation for another time.
I have never wanted a tattoo. I never found anything meaningful enough to get permanently inked onto my body. Now, there have been times when I slightly thought about it- in the sense of “I wish I wasn’t so afraid of needles, because that would be a cool thing to get”. My sister got the words “Texas Forever” tattooed on her a few years back because she and I fell in love with the show Friday Night Lights and it’s our way of saying we will always be there for each other. It’s extremely meaningful but I didn’t go through with getting a matching one. When my grandad passed away 4 years ago, my siblings got the words “Full Speed Ahead” tattooed. That was the phrase my grandad would say to us every time we hugged him goodbye. Super meaningful…still didn’t join in.
The day before Christmas Eve, I was out shopping for last minute gifts and supplies for the holidays when Shelby (my sister) texted me that she and my brothers were going to go get tattoos in honor of my dad that night. They figured I wouldn’t want one so they didn’t include me in the planning of it. I said that it was a great idea but that no, I would not be getting one like they thought. I did ask if she could send me pictures of the final products. A few hours later, she sent me pictures of their arms with different variations of my dad’s birthday written out. 6.2.57. In his own handwriting. My brother Kevin got my dad’s handwritten initials under the date and my brother Adam got baseball stitches under his. Baseball was my dad’s favorite sport. Shelby sent me hers and she only had the date on her arm by itself but then she had also gotten a small blue heart outline on her index finger as well. I remember that I was in my kitchen baking banana bread when I got the picture and I started crying. I was immediately overcome with an overwhelming sense of deep need and a thought of “I can do that. I need to do that”. It was just a small outline. It couldn’t hurt that bad.
When I told my family that I wanted to get one, it was as if pigs had flown. No one expected me to say this…ever. My mom decided that if I was going to face one of my biggest fears, she should do it with me. It was set.
The day after Christmas we went to the tattoo parlor and as much as I told myself I was going to be ok, anxiety took over. I was shaky and my heart was pounding so fast I felt lightheaded even just walking into the place. My mom went first and she came back from the room totally fine. She told me I’d have no problem.
When it was time for me to go in, I felt myself smiling at the guy a lot, probably too much out of fear but it wasn’t like he could tell because of my mask. He had me sit in a nice chair and told me to lean back. I later realized that my mom had prepped him for me, let him know my fears and that there was a good chance I would be unconscious soon. Super thankful for that. However, the guy was super nice and made sure to talk me through everything he was doing. I was told to keep both feet on the ground, lean backwards and not forwards, (he couldn’t catch me if I went face first into the floor) and don’t stop breathing. Easy. I looked straight ahead and did my breathing exercises. I got this.
I did not have this. The second the needle touched my skin it was excruciating. I wanted to punch every single person who told me, “It won’t hurt!”, “It’s really not that bad”, “Feels like little tiny zaps on your finger”.
No. This was awful. I thought my finger was being sawed off and immediately my body went into action. I think all the blood just rushed out of me. I felt intensely cold but also extremely hot and sweaty all at the same time. I was so incredibly aware that there was a needle in my finger and that thought took over my entire being. I kept accidentally leaning forward out of instinct and that just made things worse. I was bouncing in and out of blackouts until finally the pain stopped. He was done with half of the heart and wanted me to check out the progress. I’ll be honest, I looked at my finger with half of a blue heart on it and figured I could just stop there. I could make up some meaningful story about how my heart is broken forever so I only have half a heart left or something like that…but I didn’t. I told him to hurry up and finish the rest of it because I wasn’t going to last much longer. He laughed and said he could tell and back I went into the depths of hell. The second line of the heart was the same amount of pain, no different even though I knew what was coming. Except this time, my ability to hear completely vanished. My body just shut my ears off in this round of torture. I knew he was talking to me but I had no idea what was being said so I just nodded a lot. The tattoo was finished and all in all I was probably done in less than 3 minutes. It felt like an eternity though.
I am at a point in my life where I am very much aware of how ridiculous all of this sounds. I got a very small tattoo on my finger and the way I just described my experience was extremely dramatic. Here’s the thing though, my fears and anxiety have run my life and my decisions for 30 years. I am so deeply afraid of needles that there are things I would just never do. The fact that I was able to overcome those thoughts was a major victory in itself. This is a description of where my mind goes when I’m in the middle of a panic attack. It’s a look into how I cope physically and mentally. It’s not always realistic to the outside world. The guy who gave me my tattoo had tattoos pretty much covering his whole body, so my tiny little heart was nothing to him. But to me, it was everything.
Anyway, as I was coming out of my blackout my tattoo guy taped me up and told me he could either carry me out to my mom in the lobby area or I could just hang out in the chair for a bit until I was able to walk out on my own. I chose that option and just sat there reflecting on what I had just done.
I had gotten a tattoo. I had accomplished something I genuinely never thought I would ever do. I was so proud of myself I started tearing up. My poor body was going through so much that I think the tears were a coping mechanism for the anxiety and pure panic I had experienced. But I had done it. It looked beautiful and I knew I had done a good thing.
The rest of the day I spent just taking it easy. I always tend to feel nauseous after a panic attack so I expected that. What I didn’t expect were the intense emotions that came with what I had done. I would look at my finger, see this blue heart staring back and me, and burst into tears. I missed my dad. That was it. I laid in bed for 2 hours and just cried. I looked at pictures of him and cried. I thought about memories and cried. I would look at my finger and cry.
I’m able to look at my finger now and not cry every time I see the blue heart. I’m able to smile and feel good about not only my decision to get it, but what it stands for.
It has been a month since my dad died and a lot of people have been asking me how I’m doing lately. I wanted to try my best to give a good answer to that here. I don’t know how I’m doing. That’s as much of an answer as I can give. Some days are good. I’m able to be super productive and get everything on my to-do list done and feel proud of what I accomplished in the day. Other days I lay on the couch and cry. There are even in between days where I start off very productive and then end my day in tears or vice versa. There is no way to know how my days are going to go. I try my hardest to stick to a routine right now. Boone and I walk 3 miles each morning at 8:30am, we come home, I do a workout and then I meditate. That’s usually where my day is decided. I cry a lot during meditation. Being alone with your thoughts is hard enough as it is on a normal day, but throw traumatic grief in there and it’s a whole new world. I am trying though. I am making moves each day to mend the million tiny shattered pieces of my heart that have been torn out and I think I’m making some improvement.
On Christmas Eve, J and I were hanging out and playing games with our friend’s that we see every Christmas Eve morning. It was the first time I had seen anyone besides my family or my best friend at that point and to be honest, it was tough. Christmas Eve and Christmas were daunting this year. I wished we could have skipped over them and not have had to endure Christmas morning with my dad’s stocking hanging on the fireplace completely empty. But we couldn’t skip them and we were powering through so we continued with our traditions as best (and as safely) as we could.
I was talking to my friend about how I was doing and I made a comment about how I was going to miss the fact that every Christmas Eve, my dad always forgot to get my mom stocking stuffers and would rush me out the door to go to Target to pick up all her favorite things. I hated shopping with the crowds on Christmas Eve so I would always get super upset with him and ask him to make a reminder to shop for her sooner next year. He never would. I told my friend this story and laughed because this year that wouldn’t be the case and I was weirdly sad about it. As I said those words…I realized that because my dad wasn’t here to forget to buy my mom her stocking stuffers…no one else had taken that job and none of us kids had gotten her anything. It was incredible. Here he was, even now, telling me that I needed to go to Target to shop on Christmas Eve. That was one of my most favorite Target trips ever. Even if I cried a lot in my car afterwards.
Things like that are what I am trying to experience and be thankful for. I’m doing ok but I’m also really not ok. I don’t think I’ll ever be “ok” again. My dad was taken from my family when none of us were ready to let him go, that isn’t something you easily adjust to. I miss him every single day and that isn’t going to change.
What I’m left with now is a blue heart tattoo on my left index finger. I get to look at it every day and know that I was the daughter that promised my dad I would never get a tattoo.
He just needs to get over this one.
