My teenager got a tattoo.
Inked
On Thursday, I went out to lunch with girlfriends to catch up and celebrate my new job when I got a text from my oldest child from his apartment in New York asking if it was true that his little brother had gotten “INKED.”
“What?” I texted back and my older son quickly backpedaled and replied that he must have misunderstood something.
“Ladies,” I announced as our salads and salmon were set before us, “I believe my baby has gotten a tattoo.”
This was confirmed in my kitchen after lunch when I demanded that my 18-year old pull up his shirt. He had just walked in from a workout as I confronted him about the tattoo and when he demurred I told him to take off the top he was wearing. He's taken to lopping off the sleeves of t-shirts to highlight his newly developed arm muscles so the fabric hangs loosely around his torso.
"I don't want to," he told me.
“Go ahead, big man,” I said. “Show me what you did.”
And then he pulled up the front of his shirt.
Reader: it’s huge. A giant disk covering much of the right side of his chest and it’s just so dark against his pale skin. The blackness of the ink almost seemed to shimmer in the afternoon light streaming through the window over the sink.
I had to walk away as he nervously laughed and told my retreating back how much he loved it. I said from the other room that I was incredibly disappointed and it was a horrible decision. I might have said it looked stupid. Then I retreated to my bedroom where I spent most of the night, folding laundry and angrily decluttering my closet.
Usually, when I walk past his (invariably) closed bedroom door, I give it a little tap with my fingertips, just to say hello. Many times – if his gaming headset isn’t on – he will respond in a falsetto “Hi, Mom.” In the mornings, we’ll have a chat standing at the kitchen counter while he tops his English muffin with peanut butter and bananas before I head out to an early meeting.
But on Thursday night, I walked down the hallway upstairs multiple times and ignored my son’s closed door and the next morning, he steered clear of me and waited to eat after I left.
***
One of the hardest things about parenting comes at the tail end of the gig, when – after years of micromanaging afterschool activities and playdates and the right amount of vegetables ingested each day – you have to let go so they can leave the nest and manage life without you.
But the problem is, by that point you’ve gotten so used to your children (usually, begrudgingly) doing what you've told them to do that when all of a sudden they become “adults” who can make decisions of their own you don’t agree with, the roles are reversed. Now you are left to (usually, begrudgingly) accept that they are in control of their own lives.
***
The weekend before, that teenager came home on Sunday from his father’s and I saw that his neck was covered in hickeys. I barked his name and asked how he could have gone to work looking like that, and he blushed but also seemed kind of proud of himself. I remember consoling myself that at least those bruises were temporary. In a few days, they would be gone. But the tattoo kept me up at night, overwrought by the permanence of what he had done.
***
I was sitting at the counter eating zoodles for lunch on Friday afternoon, when I heard my son bound down the stairs and enter the kitchen and he asked, in that falsetto voice, if I was still mad at him.
“I couldn’t sleep last night,” I told him, and he burst out laughing.
He came close and took my face in his grown man hands and said smiling, “Mom, we’re spinning on a rock through space. It just doesn’t matter,” and he stood and looked me in the eye, before backing off smiling, and then I couldn’t help but smile back.
Of course, he’s right. In the scheme of things, the tattoo doesn’t mean anything. As teenagers go, my youngest is not the worst, and getting a tattoo had been something he had talked about doing for a long time -- even though I’d told him it would be over my dead body.
He told me he had researched the tattoo place, had made an appointment in January during philosophy class, went there alone on Wednesday afternoon, that the tattoo itself took over two hours and it really hurt (a minor consolation).
As for the circular design, he explained it was a Nordic compass with the coordinates of where we lived and that it symbolized protection and guidance and would always lead him back home. He told me he was thrilled with it and that he was still in awe every time he looked down to see it there on his chest.
What can I say to that? Whether I like it or not, that was apparently his truth. Who am I to tell him otherwise?
I also thought his 27-year-old sister’s decision last year to donate her kidney to a girl she grew up with was a terrible idea, and it turned out to be an amazing experience on about 10 different levels and I would encourage anyone considering organ donation to go for it. And, not for nothing, that daughter has two tattoos.
I also have a tattoo. It’s small and on my lower back, which my 23-year-old daughter so kindly reminded me was a "tramp stamp" when I was freaking out this week. I’d gone to watch my then-husband and sister-in-law get tattoos almost 20 years ago and before the end of the night, had gotten coaxed into getting one myself. I think the only truth there was that I let someone talk me into such an indelible decision.
***
Having older children is such a complicated dance. They want your approval but also to live their own lives and you want them to be happy but also think they should ____ (fill in the blank). We parents can be judgemental and know just how our kids could do things a little better. And whether that's for their own good or how it reflects on us or a little bit of both is debatable.
My older daughter and I were Facetiming a couple of weeks ago and she leaned close into the monitor to answer a message from work. “You got your nose pierced?” I yelled, and she cursed and said she’d forgotten it was there. She and her sister have multiple ear piercings, like places I would never even consider letting somebody punch a hole through with a needle. "What is it with you guys?" I asked.
***
Who knows what story my 18-year-old is trying to tell the world with this new tattoo? I guess that’s not up to me to say. In fact, I don’t really have a lot of options except one: I won't look at it.
I am not sure how long it’s going to take me to square what that black inky disk represents: that my youngest child is no longer a child or under my sway. That despite knowing how opposed I was to it, he marched himself into a tattoo studio and withstood a couple of hours of pain to manifest this vision of who he wanted to be.
And that there's not a damn thing I can do about it
SUNDAY SHARE: read-watch-cook-buy
After our cat died suddenly a few weeks ago, my sister kept asking me to send her a picture of Kitty, which she had transferred onto adorable acrylic boxes she sent to me and my daughters. I'll share it on Instagram so you can see you sweet it is. She got a new puppy and our aunt sent her the box with Daisy's picture in it and it's just a really cute gift idea.
I got snared by an online quiz a few months ago, I am ashamed to admit. The headline, "Who's Your Inner Goddess?" caught me and dragged me down a hole of questions to determine just what powerful being most reflected my core goddess. So when the answer came back, "Medusa," it really gave me pause. A monster with snakes for hair who turns anyone who looks at her into stone is most reflective of my personality? What am I not seeing about myself? But the more I thought about it, and if you could track the number of times I went back to the website to look at the Medusa charm necklace that kept stalking me on social media you'd see it was a lot, the more I liked the idea of that mythological creature as my inner goddess. Plus, I really wanted a bigger gold medallion to wear with other necklaces. It came this week and I made sure to point it out to Mr. Tattoo, to tell him if he kept f-ing around with me, I'd turn his ass into stone. The charm has a nice heft to it and there are a few different chain styles to choose from as well as tons of iconic figures to help you channel your own inner goddess -- everyone from Athena and Joan or Arc to Harriet Tubman and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The warmer weather found me wearing these adorable sneakers that my son had given me for my birthday last year and they always get tons of compliments. They're not on sale right now but I'll put them on your radar and you can decide whether you wait or make the investment (they're worth it).
I also pulled out the leather bag I bought last year (these guys always have sales) to go with a fabulous strap a friend gave me. Tempted to buy a new one for spring.
This week, the tween son (and Star Wars superfan) of my very cool artist college friend who lives in Dumbo, Brooklyn followed me on Instagram. If that stud follows me it only stands to reason that you should, too.
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