Stopping to Ink

In contravention of the motherly advice given all over the world, I’m here to tell you that getting a tattoo is a fantastic idea. To be fair, I just got a tattoo a week ago (that wicked cool Navy piece pictured here) so I’m not as objective as I would have been had I written this a month ago, but trust me, I would have given the same advice back then. We have seen tattooing go from prisons and biker gangs to suburbia and celebrities then back again. It remains, however, the seminal act of rebellion and one of few permanent things still available to us in the era of months-long marriages, annual job hopping and suburban home flipping. Though tattoos mean something to each of us, and they also mean something different to each of us. For many, they are cultural, and for others they are the ultimate lack of culture. For some, they love or hate them openly, and others, love or hate them quite privately. But having heard the arguments for and against them (some of which I’ll review below), I can’t really come to any other conclusion than to tell that if you’ve thought for a while about getting yourself inked, go ahead and do it - and make your story beautifully immortal.

It Hurts

It’s a misrepresentation to say that getting a tattoo hurts badly. It would be much more accurate to say it hurts significantly; and that’s really sort of the point. After all, it’s a very small needle putting ink under your skin a very small bit at a time. It’s a quintessentially adult event and surely not for the faint of heart. But, nonetheless, it’s a good kind of hurt; like the burn of a shot of really good tequila or that deep soreness you get after a really good workout. And much like those hurts, it doesn’t last very long - while the ink itself lasts, well, forever. How much it hurts depends a whole lot on where you get it - as a good rule of thumb, if it’s someplace that it would hurt more to get hit than another, it’ll probably hurt more to get a tattoo there (i.e. anyplace without a whole lot of “padding”). Note: this is not a plea for you to get ink on your plushest parts, just a fair warning for when you don't.

In fairness, if the reason you’re not getting a tattoo is because you’re afraid it’s going to hurt too much - it actually may not be such a good idea for you. Those of us who do have a little ink would rather not have any more sissies running around sporting wanna-be tats. But if it’s simply an item you have in your “cons” instead of “pros” columns - rest assured, it’s not as bad as you think.

On a final note regarding the pain, if you’re planning on bringing friends along with you, put on a brave face - because if you don’t, the jokes about how big of a Sally you were will be as never-ending as your tattoo.

When You’re Older

This is the reason I hear the most often: when you get old, it will look terrible on you. Well, here’s a news flash, Nostradamus, when you get old, all of you is going to look terrible - especially naked. Trust me, when you’re 65, a slightly misshapen tattoo is not going to be the least attractive thing on your naked body, in fact, it’s probably not even going to be in the worst five things on you at that age. Who are you kidding? Have you been to the gym lately and seen what happens to bodies as they age? And those are the ones that are being taken care of! If anyone wants to see you undressed when you’re that old it’s either (a) someone who loves you enough to care less about your old tattoos or (b) someone you’re paying enough to not to care about your old tattoos. Either way, again, your old ink doesn’t matter.

Besides, what exactly do you expect to be wearing in your retirement years? There’s a high likelihood that the number of low-rise jeans, sleeveless shirts, or bare midriffs you’ll be sporting will be significantly reduced from your days of wine and cheese. At that age you’ll be showing less skin than a nun in a Boston winter. For all you know, the folks down at the rest home might have full tattoo sleeves and golden eagles across their chests; because they’re wearing pants pulled up to their armpits, support hose, long sleeved sweaters and collars buttoned up high enough to hide the stack of skin that used to be their necks.

There are a lot of good reasons not to get yourself tatted, but this isn’t one of them.

What Not To Wear

Not all tattoos are a good idea, in fact, the web is littered with a bevy of ill-advised tattoos (http://www.badtattoos.com/; http://www.mytattoosucks.com/; http://www.shittytattoos.com/) which are instructive on a number of counts:

1. The percentage of tattoos on those sites that are “portrait pieces” is not an accident. If you want to remember someone’s face, take a picture, shoot a movie or even have a painting made; the one thing that won’t look good stretched, sagged or faded is a line drawing of a loved one’s face;
   
2. If you think a cartoon character is a good idea for a tattoo, you’re too young to get one - this applies no matter how old you are;
   
3. While intensely personal, make sure someone you know and trust (besides your tattoo artist) sees your design before you get it done. This has a high likelihood of preventing any “naked lady” pieces or anything with someone else’s name;
4. If waking up in strange places with strange people hasn’t taught you this already, decisions you make while drunk (or otherwise impaired) are not the sort you want to be permanent;
   
5. Finally, if it’s on you, you’d better know what it means - this applies to equations, quotations, poetry passages, and most importantly, foreign languages.

* * *

In the end, the stories of our lives often go largely untold. For some, we are simply unwilling to tell them - either we fear the scabs over old wounds are not as thick as we would like them to be, or we have made ourselves who are in spite of who we used to be and don’t wish those who a part of our new lives to know about our old ones. For many others, however, we simply lose them. Because as time passes, memories fade and we have fewer and fewer occasions to share who we are as we grow older. Younger generations seize the days and our dim recollections grow less and less relevant. But stories can and do live beyond our memories; both on our pages and our bodies. By committing just a few important pieces of yourself and your life to the permanence of ink, whether on paper or on skin - you both bravely forego the ability to ever completely forget and bravely commit to telling the world, not just who you are, but who you were. And in that simple way, you can live forever.