Feeling: independent
Listening to: --
Reading/Watching: Wonderfalls

Mom plucked at the fabric of my shirt and tsked when the corner of my tattoo poked above the neckline. "What on earth made you decide to do that to yourself?"

I knew she wouldn't be a fan of my ink, but that wasn't exactly a factor when I went to an artist in Sistertown and gave detailed, specific instructions about what I wanted.

I wanted something jagged, a little painful, with vivid purples and greens. In the end, the butterfly looked like a poisonous mutant of the lacewing pictures I brought. It was just lifting off, not pinned to a board or folded up. I know butterflies are trite, but my living room walls are covered with paintings of butterflies, so it's legitimately my thing.

But I didn't give her this whole shpiel. At the time I got inked, I didn't even know the real reason why I got the tattoo, except the fact that I wanted one, and it took me over a year to choose a location and a design.

My answer was this: "When [the ex] and I were getting divorced, he kept showing up, taking things, calling my family, calling friends and priests and internet shrinks to get them to talk me into staying, writing me e-mails about how we belonged together, how I was his wife, how I was his. He tried to make me come back to him by making me feel like his property, like I had no right to leave. So I got a tattoo because I wanted to tell the entire world 'This is my body, and this is what I'm doing with it.' Some women prove that by sleeping around or piercing things, I decided to get a tattoo."

And really, what is anyone going to say to that? Mom made a disapproving face and dropped it. I felt a little triumphant.

Not saying I'm going to start getting tats all over the place, unless I deliberate over several months again and decide it's really perfect. But I'm my own. I stamped myself with a Property of Me label. Nobody can deny that, ever again.

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