The Gateway Tattoo

There are shoulder blade Sanskrit characters. And then there are the tattoos you get when you’re no longer a something-teen. When you grow up, and realise who you are. These are the tattoos that are so important, so vital and resonant, that they can only come with life and perspective. When you’re 24, you can’t possibly know that you’ll come to hate lotus flowers (and soaring eagles and – sorry! – your mother’s name) in the coming years. Here’s what else you might sense but can’t know about getting a grown-up tattoo: it’s a gateway. My gateway just happened to be my children’s initials on my finger and my husband’s signature on my wrist.

What kind of gateway really depends on the person on the pointy side of the needle. Maybe it’s a gateway to another tattoo. Or a new chapter. Whatever it may lead to, a tattoo always leads to something. It’s a midlife crisis without the crisis. A marker of arrival and understanding and experience. I couldn’t have had my tattoos when I was in my 20s. It would have been a masquerade. But now, I look at those graceful lines and realise that they don’t represent a chapter in my life – they represent my life.