The “Royal Flesh” Tattoo and Piercing Center surprisingly was open very late on a Saturday evening. We were giggling as we climbed out of the taxi and saw the sign on the door telling us that a young man named “Powder” was the artist on duty that evening. We had made an impulsive phone call and knew he was expecting us. My friend Connie was whimpering a little bit, but the rest of us were calm and managed to keep her settled down as well. After the procedure was finished, we climbed back into a taxi, minus a little cash and sporting fresh bandages to cover our wounds.
My friends and I were having a lot of fun that weekend making many memories. If life is a story, this was a chapter to remember. Conversations about tattoos had been going on for several summers and all that was needed was the right occasion, someone to throw down the challenge, and the right person who knew where to take us. All that came together on that evening in Chicago. There were no time-consuming decisions to be made; we all knew exactly what we wanted. Coincidentally, Connie and I were wearing necklaces depicting the symbols we each cherished and our friend Deb quickly found a picture of hers.
They say that once you start “inking” your body, you’re likely to become hooked. They also say that if you get tattoos when you’re young, you’ll probably regret it when you’re old. My daughter, who speaks humor into the truth, told me I’m smart because I waited until I actually was old to get the first one (a magnolia in memory of a very dear friend on my ankle). This time however I became a little bolder with a message that goes much deeper than “I miss my friend Lori.”
If you do a Google search for the symbols, “alpha and omega,” you’ll find lots of Greek and sorority items. There’s also a home-schooling website, a brand of car seat, and a recent movie about two wolves. The symbols have been used often, but never with such deep meaning as in the book of Revelation. When the Bible talks about Jesus being the beginning and the end, His timeline stretches much farther in both of those directions than anything else with that title; so when I put an “alpha” on the inside of one wrist, and an “omega” on the inside of the other, it meant a lot more than Jesus being there from the beginning to the end of life as I know it.
I’ve had some feedback about my decision—actually mostly positive. We’ll see what summer brings when my wrists are laid bare for all to see. When people ask me, I’ll feel compelled to tell them about Jesus, but I’ll probably ask them if they want the short explanation or the long one.
My life is a story. These symbols remind me that I know how it begins and I’m confident how it will end. What happens in between is the awesome part. I just finished Donald Miller’s book “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years,” and it was one of those life-changing, or should I say “story-changing” experiences. He talks about having the amazing chance to re-write and change ones story—it’s never too late. The chapters of my own story all happen between the “alpha” and “omega.” It’s pretty much up to me to make them meaningful.
Sometimes that quest for a meaningful story involves getting messy, sometimes it involves difficult and intense conversations, sometimes it involves excruciatingly hard work, but other times it involves the pure joy and silliness of making memories in a tattoo parlor.
No comments :
Post a Comment