A Permanent Reminder-Write on Edge

I don't believe in tattoo removal. I think that a tattoo is a part of your story. It tells what kind of person you were at that moment in your life. It reminds you of good times and sometimes not so good times.  You may be a different person now, but you were the person who got that tattoo at one time too. Erasing the ink doesn't change the past. 

Say you loved someone so deeply that you wanted their name tattooed on your rear end, but then you broke up. As awkward as the conversation might be with your next mate,that doesn't change the love you had for someone. You can't forget that kind of love. Maybe it will remind you not to be so rash in the future, or to be careful who you give your heart too.  That's an important part of why you are you today. By the way I highly discourage name tattoos, unless they are your children or dead relatives.

Say you were eighteen, a silly young girl and got a butterfly with a tribal design on your lower back. While wholly unoriginal, it is still yours. You at one time were a silly 18 year old girl and who wouldn't want to remember the fun of that?

I have a tattoo that is supposed to say "human" in arabic. I thought the concept of us all being human sounded super deep. And I liked the lettering. But it turns out that the tattoo artist was an idiot and traced it backwards, so now I have arabic gibberish on my leg. I actually had a stranger who spoke arabic laugh himself silly at my expense.  But I won't change it. It reminds me of being married the first time and all the many mistakes that came with that. It reminds me of living in Virginia. It reminds me not to spend money you don't have on things like tattoos. It also reminds me to only get tattoos from someone you trust.

Permanent lessons learned with permanent reminders. I have five tattoos and plan on many more. If we had more money, my husband and I would be covered. It's funny, I was so scared to tell my dad about my first one, and now it's rare if someone doesn't have any. I imagine that our children will go in the opposite direction and claim that our body art is embarrassing and ask us to wear long sleeves. But I won't because I am proud of my decisions, even the bad ones.  They have shaped me.  Not to mention,  it's my right as a parent to embarrass my children.

So don't remove it. You will still have a scar, wouldn't you rather have an inked one?

Do you have any tattoos? What is the meaning behind them?