I always liked to look at tattoo designs. Whether it was online or on someone's skin, I liked checking out the designs and learning the stories behind them, which, I suppose, is the main reason I like watching tattoo shows like "Ink Master," "LA Ink," and "Miami Ink." Despite my fear of needles, I've been planning tattoos for years, one of which I never thought that I'd really get, but one that I'm highly considering.

Until recently, I never really thought about getting portrait tattoos. I like the design of them, especially when they're done really well, but I never considered getting one for myself. Dragons, lyrics, all things Halloween...even a badass lighthouse tattoo that I wanted Kat Von D to tattoo on me herself (because I absolutely love Kat's tattoo style)...but never a portrait tattoo.

That was...until a few years ago when my grandmother on my mom's side of the family passed away from cancer. I wasn't very close to her in life, but, after she died, I was helping my mom go through some of her stuff in her house, and my eyes were instantly drawn to a small bust of Beethoven sitting on her bookshelf. That was just the beginning. Going through her record collection and my mom telling me so many stories of things that her mother used to like, I realized that we had more in common than I'd originally thought, and I was sorry that I didn't get to know her more in life.

That was what originally took me to deciding on getting a portrait tattoo done. To immortalize this woman that I wished I had gotten to know, this woman who, without her, I wouldn't even be here. I started thinking of a design for my tattoo almost a month or two after her funeral.

Here it is, 3 years after the fact, and I still don't have the tattoo yet, but now I've built on the design. My grandmother on my dad's side just passed back at the end of June, and I decided to add her portrait onto the design. I have a whole arm that I've decided to dedicate to portraits of my grandparents, deciding to also add to my grandfather's portrait to it. As soon as I get the money saved up and find an artist who I feel could really do it justice, I have the spot picked out for the tattoo.

Tattoos tell a story. Every single one, be it just one you get on a whim or on a stupid, drunken night or even one that you've put a lot of thought into...Each and every tattoo tells a story. While I don't have any just yet, this particular one will definitely be the one that holds the most meaning to me. What it says to me is that you should never take a single second of your life for granted...and you should always tell your family that you love them. You never know what might happen and if you'll ever be able to say it to them again.