Look out, tatted-up citizens of the Pacific Northwest: your cool club just got nerdier by a factor of one.  They'll give tattoos to just about anybody these days.

There are types of people who, when leaving for college, need to be reminded to have a good time.  There are others that need to be reminded to please study every once in a while.  My very first tattoo is healing nicely, and it appears the people who love me are relieved that I finally took a break from studying.  

Do you know how fun it is to get your first tattoo at 37 years old?  With kids, and a husband, and a real job?  It's like a pedicure with a martini, plus Chris Hemsworth.  I imagine the pretty young things that typically enter a parlor for first-time ink do so under the banner of youthful rebellion, and maybe the occasional mind-altering substance.  But do they have to arrange for child care first?  Review the design with a partner who will be stuck looking at it 'til death to you part?  Do they harbor decades of backstory to confirm that, yes, this design is 100% non-regrettable adornment?  Have they actually seen their body change after childbirth?  Some things are richer when you wait longer. 

They also come with better shock value.  Mostly, the shock has been mine.  For starters, I kept waiting for someone to warn me that I was too uncool to jump off this aesthetic cliff.  On the day I got my tattoo, I wore my most absolutely wholesome teacher dress.  I met with someone to review a presentation in the morning.  I double-thanked my husband for watching the kids.  I was the portrait of responsibility.  Then I drove myself out to Vallejo, past buildings with barred windows and unkempt lawns, and teetered into a tattoo parlor that was decorated floor to ceiling in a naked-ladies-and-bloody-skulls motif.  If you can picture Little Bo Peep clutching her purse on a stroll down Skid Row, you have a pretty good image of the tableau.  I kept waiting for someone to ask for my cool card, or at least have a somber talk prepared to make sure this was really something I wanted.  Nope!  It turns out, no matter how benign your appearance, if you pay someone to pound ink into your arm, they'll do it.  No cool card required.  (There was a guy getting his chest tattoo filled in,  who laughed at me from the back of the parlor for being an ink virgin.  So at least the house was honest.)

The greater shock came from my parents.  To their credit, they've weathered bolder choices: my working abroad, marrying out-of-state, and skydiving come to mind.  Maybe it's because no matter how old I get, something in me will always feel like I'm seventeen and it's a minute before curfew.  I like my coloring to stay inside the lines.  What I expected, when I revealed the new me, was to be met with worry over blood infections or reckless choices for the workplace.  Instead, my mom reacted as if I'd just surprised her with a new grandchild.  My dad made me pose for pictures he could send to the family back home.  My mother in-law even gave me a fist bump.  In place of taboo, I discovered trust and a little bit of fun.   

Friends and colleagues have since flattered me with an "Oh!" of surprise, a few questions about why and when, and then returned to business as usual.  My visions of blowing everyone's minds with my reckless, visible, permanent artwork were put in check pretty immediately.  It turns out, all the old sages are right: how you act every day makes far more powerful impact than a little design you put on your arm.  Probably anyone else with a tattoo and longstanding relationships could have told me that one.  Shocker.

My tattoo might be new, but the feeling of it isn't.  The first time I can remember it taking up real thought space was when I traveled through New Zealand twelve years ago.  The rickety tour bus I was on broke down and off-loaded its passengers on the side of a mountain that seemed like it could give way under our feet at any second.  I remember very coolly thinking, "If this is the end, I sure wish I'd gotten that tattoo sooner."  (Not my most profound thought, I'll admit.)  So I've felt like it's been with me for a long time, even though I just recently made the time to get it done. 

Last spring I read a New Yorker article that was not about tattoos.  But it made me think about mine.  The article featured a plastic surgeon who specializes in helping transgender people who experience gender dysphoria- "an intense feeling of un-rightness".  His work has helped many who look in the mirror and see someone they don't recognize: a masculine jawline that should be softly feminine, and so on.  He works with his patients- who are often willing to undergo painful procedures- to attain the face they feel is actually theirs.  I imagine the change is shocking to their colleagues, but to those who previously had a stranger staring back at them in the mirror, it must feel like coming home.  Getting a tattoo is not nearly as dramatic of a journey, but I had imagined having it for so long that it did feel like I was lifting the veil on something I'd known had been there all along. 

That's the appeal of the modern tattoo: there is so much we cannot control about the way  people see us.  Genetics and culture team up with a few other variables, and do not ask us if we feel like we should look tall or fat or redheaded.  We get what we get.  But with ink and a needle, we have infinite means to adorn the outside with something comes from within.  Or at least pick a nice flower to embellish an ankle.  It represents a point in time when choice took a jab at fate.   Our own attempt to correct a tiny feeling of dysphoria. 

In the end, I'm not all that special or remarkably daring, despite the exuberant reactions of the people closest to me.  Ink's appeal is no longer limited to the fringe of society; something like a third of all Americans have at least one tattoo.  (Recent trips to Santa Cruz and Vancouver, however, have me convinced that the West Coast may be tipping the boat on those numbers.  Anecdotal evidence suggests that in certain zip codes, the question is not if there's a tattoo, but where and how many.)  Tattoos have been found in cultures worldwide, from South America to Egypt to Tahiti- and dated as long as 5000 years ago.  They have been used as medical treatments, amulets, and markers of cast & tribe.  They've been used for horrible intent, and they have also been used in efforts to heal and express. 

My big, wild, crazy tattoo took about ten minutes to apply.  It was so simple, the tattoo artist would't take anything above the deposit I paid her to keep my appointment.  (I tried not to feel insulted when she laughed and said she lowered the price because it was so quick.)  Now, right in the spot you'd get mustard on your sleeve while eating a corn dog, sits an image of three cattle brands my family has used for generations.  It is a symbol of where I'm from and what has built me, and people who I deeply love.  It's also proof that even a straight A pleaser can do something a little surprising, even if the most surprised person is herself.  The thing is, I feel like it's been here for years- it just took a tattoo artist to help me show it off.