I love tattoos. When I saw my first tattoo as a kid, I was frightened. “What is that?” I asked my mom. But it was always in front of the person and my mother would shush me to stop talking.
As I got older in my teens, twenties and thirties, I also thought about getting a tattoo but then was reminded that being Jewish, I would not be buried in the same cemetery as my family. That stopped me from getting one.
Until, I talked with my Rabbi who told me the whole burial thing was an Old Wives Tale. Then I did my own research. There is no place in the bible that says that if you do something to your body, that you can’t be buried!
I started to think. All these years I didn’t want to get them because of this and the whole thing was a scam?
Last year I got my first tattoo. I wanted one to resemble my children and my life line. After that, I wanted one to show unity with my husband and one to resemble me, a butterfly. Although I’m not exactly a free spirit as a butterfly would suggest, I do fantasize about it. Hence the butterfly in all different colors on my ankle!
Some people are very against tattoos and I’m not really sure why. A lot of younger people who have them, hide them from their employers in fear of not getting or losing their job.
Some say you shouldn’t get it in your twenties because you will resent having them when you get older.
Well, I’m older and I recently got three and I love them. And you know what, at this stage of my life, the most important thing is that I’m happy and it really doesn’t matter what other people think… Don’t you agree?
