Our Lady of Perpetual Hell

I’ll never have anything to do with computers.

I’ll never go back to school.

I’ll never move back to Sarnia.

I’ll never allow myself to move back in with my parents.

I’ll never get a tattoo.

The “never say never” rule is one that I have learned over and over in my life. Saying I’ll never do something pretty much guarantees that someday I will do that very thing.

Thus, I am inked.

My nephew Tristan used to wear a silver ankh pendant on a chain around his neck. He got it on a vacation in Mexico a couple of years ago and wore it all the time. His mom wears it now. All the time. Without telling her why, I traced its outline after dinner at her place a few weeks ago. Over the next little while, I modified the drawing so that the top loop was reshaped into a heart. Tristan’s ankh was a little lopsided–with one side of the top loop a little narrower than the other–and, after designing a “corrected” version, I decided to leave that “imperfection” as-is. Because, y’know, Tristan wasn’t perfect. And neither am I. A couple weeks ago I took the design down to the tattoist who had done all of Tristan’s tats and had him put it on the inside of my left wrist, facing me.

I look at it all the time and marvel at how much it means to me and how surprised I am at that and how much he would love that I did this.

If only I’d done this while he was here.

I find myself plagued with regrets like that one, and I will try to write about the pain of that soon.