At a gathering a couple of years ago, there was a heated debate going in between a couple of friends and myself about tattoos. I have always believed that tattoos are pointless, even when a person has the name of their mom, dad, or loved one tattooed onto their skin. I feel that if you really love someone, show them how much you love them with actions rather than showing off this ink on your skin. This is just my personal belief. Obviously everyone has different thoughts and opinions on the subject and in this case all my friends were upset by this discussion. There was this one girl that was especially angered by what I had said, she called me all types of names and in trying to calm the situation down I had no other choice but to agree with her. Even though my beliefs were otherwise, at the moment it just seem like the right thing to do, rather than to keep an argument going that wasn't going anywhere.
In a moment of utter and complete despair, I took a long deep breath and decided to calm down. Eventually I gathered all my thoughts and decided that I should see her point of view and the point of view of everyone else in the room, because at this point everyone was against me and I felt thrown a against a wall and no where to go, actually I felt like I had been trapped in a corner. In seeking some answers, some more open points of view, I received some logical, very thorough and sentimental responses. I found that people usually have very well thought out ideas of why they want a tattoo. Their reasons could be a death of a loved one and they want to to keep them in their memory as well as also marked onto their skin. Some of the stories I heard of why these people had actually gotten tattoos were touching. Even though I wouldn't get a tattoo, I now understand the logic of why some people get tattoos. Some are extraordinarily significant in the life of these people. In a sense this situation opened up my mind to others points of view.
I can understand how you felt about tattoos in general. I can't wrap my head around injecting ink via needles in my skin ANYWHERE. And I am not scared of needles, either. Two of my children, now 23 & 20, have expressed their desire to get a tattoo. Now that I'm not the boss they are free to do so, but haven't. I think they were all up in the craze to be like other kids before but now consider it not so important to spend their money on. That, and the fact they don't want some permanent blotch on their bodies that is painful to remove. They might still surpise me someday, but I doubt it.
ReplyDeleteIt was good that you could understand your friends and their passion for their tattoos. I still don't aggree with that process of how to remember someone, but if they need to have a tattoo to feel close to someone lost then kudos.