Do you really want this forever?

It is a question that has recurred several times throughout my life. The first time I can clearly remember thinking this was standing in front of a mirror sometime in high school, and I was disappointed. I’m not particularly proud of this memory, but it’s there nonetheless and very vivid. That cliché “sinking feeling” of disgust and hopelessness, not only because I wasn’t fond of what I saw in the physical mirror, but because I knew it didn’t improve much. If it really is “what’s on the inside that counts,” then all I had to offer was a lot of confusion and worry and selfishness.

And then again when I was nineteen. Over Thanksgiving break I went to a tattoo studio to get a mantra written permanently over my collarbone. It was the result of over a year of deliberation and inner debate. Do I really want something on my body for the rest of my life? This is a valid consideration—while a drastic haircut or another tenacious fashion statement make one particularly self-conscious, a tattoo is a much more permanent change. This tends to make it a more personal form of self-expression (not always, but often, and it was in my case). In a way, I was putting part of me that was broken on the inside on my blemished and imperfect skin.

As those years between high school and that Thanksgiving break passed, I continued to waver between acceptance and loathing of what I saw in myself. Some days were easier than others. Some days I was stuck in a cycle of self-loathing that I hated even more because I was doing it to myself. But those days grew more and more rare.

On that day in November, I was making a declaration. Not just, “Courage, dear heart.” I was making a decision all my own that claimed my body as mine, and declaring myself—my whole self—cherished. The fretful questions of what other people might think of it and how it might look quieted; in a paradoxical sort of way, I was declaring that my skin mattered enough to use it, professing myself loved. This was a frighteningly exhilarating realization—that my belief in this Love, which had taken so long to come to terms with, was going to be shown to everyone.

Fast forward to the present day: I still love and stand by my tattoo and the motivation behind it. I quite honestly still like the aesthetic appeal of tattoos. I still have days where I am not my biggest fan and I feel alone and not worth being around. But I can’t even look at my physical reflection without seeing and hearing that still small voice, telling me that I am loved—to have courage, you dear, redeemed heart.