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The first tattoo that I got (you can also see these pictures and more here at my blog) was a raven in flight on my left arm. I got this when I was twenty, and my first girlfriend paid for it because she knew I wanted one really badly. There were a lot of reasons for this tattoo. My grandma had just died, and following her death my mom had a falling out with her siblings (anyone who has a family knows that there is a big fucked up story to this as well). My grandma had been the last tie we had to them, and so finally we were able to break away and move on with our lives. Ravens have always been my favorite animal, and they are a symbol of death and rebirth, of moving away and starting fresh. Family issues aside, I had also just begun the first really significant relationship of my life and come out in a big way as lesbian/bisexual, and to me this felt like a rebirth.

When that relationship finally and painfully ended, I felt like I was twelve again and had just flown over the handlebars of my bicycle and landed headlong in a ditch, bleeding and sore and afraid to get back on and ride again. It was my first real heartbreak, and my initial desire was never to let myself become as open as I had been this time so that I wouldn’t get this hurt ever again. I realized this would only make me miserable, and that if I did so I would miss a world of opportunity and love, and ended up getting a tattoo of a bow and arrow over my heart, pointing away from myself. I am an archer, and the significance of it is to remind myself to shoot the arrow from time to time, and dare to love completely.

I then got a Vesica Piscis on my right shoulder by an artist who was heroin addict and messed it up, and so shortly thereafter I had it redone by my current tattoo artist. This tattoo was a design I had seen on the cover of the Chalice Well in Glastonbury, England. The symbol has meaning itself, but to me it is commemorative of the trip I took to Ireland and England with my mom and brother when I was fifteen. My mom has been raising us alone since my father died in December of 1991, and she somehow managed to take us on vacation to Ireland on her own. And she rented a car and drove. On the wrong side of the road. For two weeks. Not just for this, but for everything, she is the strongest woman I know. While this tattoo didn’t come out perfect, I love it for what it reminds me of.

Then, during another – perhaps the next – significant relationship I was in, I added to the raven on my left arm by getting swirling vines tattooed around it. The reason for this was to change the original tattoo up, plain and simple. I do not regret the original nor the modified tattoo, though I got them with now-ex-girlfriends in tow. My tattoos are all – regardless of other significance – partly a memento of the road traveled, and these people were on my path and helped me get to where I am now. I do not regret knowing or caring for any of them. The tattoos help me to remember the good times, as well as the bad.

In March of 2006, I got a mermaid tattooed on my left thigh, right from my hip to my knee. This tattoo is for my father. It’s not your typical commemorative tattoo, it’s literally done for him. When I was a little girl he used to draw me mermaids and cut them out so I could “swim” them around the house, and I remember one time he drew one whose tail curled to the side, and I demanded he draw me one that was a straight on view and symmetrical so that she could swim correctly. The mermaid in this tattoo is one that I drew for him, asymmetrical and taking pause in her swimming.

And, last one! This year at my birthday, I got a triple spiral tattooed onto my left forearm in blue. The blue reminds me of the paint (woad) that the Celts would use on their bodies before battle, and I have long felt a connection to battles and protecting my loved ones, on a more psychical plane than any. Each spiral represents the path of my mom, brother and myself, and the combination of the three shows how our lives join together at the center.

For me, tattoos help me to work through certain things in my life. I got some of my tattoos during painful times in my life, and the pain of the getting tattooed has helped me release some of my own inner pain. In a way that is not at all unlike cutting, the physical pain manifests the emotional pain and makes it real. I can’t do justice to what I’m trying to say, but the process of commemoration, pain and release of grief or loss or family or love or heartbreak has helped me immeasurably, and I am left to keep the beauty that remains with me each day.