When one permanently desecrated his or her body with a tattoo, he or she acted in a worldly manner and was no better than Eve and her sinning apple. My parents felt the same way, yet my father pierced my infant ears at five weeks and my mother let him do it.

Today, tattoos are a form of artistic expression or worldly and blasphemous to others. Mine is a sense of healing comfort; an ancient art used to disguise the imperfections of the flesh, leaving a unique trademark that will grow and mature as I do.

My tattoo’s story begins at the age of 21, when I purchased my second two-piece swimsuit ever for a birthday trip to Niagara Falls. The last time I had worn a two-piece, I was nine and it was because I needed a new swimsuit for camp. My mom found it on sale at Old Navy.

I showed my friends to get a second opinion. The metallic gold short/ white and gold, polka-dotted top were received with mostly “cute” votes, but even with my body strategically covered with gold spandex, attention still was given to my scar.

I usually forgot about it because I saw it every day, but the childhood scar that took up a small percentage of the right side of my chest had healed much darker than the rest of my hot cocoa-shaded skin, leaving it to look foreign and mutant on my body.

It never failed as a conversation starter; people always wanted to know what happened.

“Did it hurt?”

“Can I touch it?”

My answer always was that it was a battle wound from a intense case of the chicken pox — five of my cousins and I were held captive for a little more than a week one summer. Also, it looked much worse than it really was. And no, I wasn’t to be touched.

Anyway, I went to Niagara Falls, but I opted to wear the same, tired black one-piece to the pool. I didn’t want anyone else staring, asking or pointing at my scar. I decided then that this had to end. Spending $40 on a swimsuit that I was too afraid to wear because of a stupid scar was the last straw.

I tried cocoa butter but my scar never seemed to fade, and laser surgery was out of my budget. So, I made a decision and went to a tattoo artist with an idea and left with “strength” scrawled across my chest, and I felt it too.

Perhaps it was the throbbing pain of the needle being dragged from my ribs to the tender skin under my breast, but I felt something new and powerful that day. The tattoo artist seemed to think so too, but he liked my scar pre-tattoo, saying it was something unexpectedly rough for a girl like me.
“You can walk around and show it off as a knife wound. Think of all the street ‘cred’ you can get.”

I told him I’d pass. I’m not a bar fighter and I didn’t want to be the next eligible candidate for “Flavor of Love.”

My parents were opposed. “You’re never going to get a job,” was what I heard from them, but it wasn’t as if I had gotten “Thug Life,” etched on the side of my neck.

It was a personal reconciliation with a physical question mark on my body. I had transformed it into a work of art. My tattoo couldn’t cover the entirety of my scar, but the intertwining of ink and discoloration make an interesting masterpiece that truly is original and can never be duplicated.

I wear a two-piece with pride now, never crossing my arms over my chest or tugging to make sure my scar isn’t peeking out. The only comment I received about my scar has came from my little brother.

He says my “strength,” is going to change into “stretch” when I get older.

Ashley Brown is the State News opinion writer. Reach her at brownas8@msu.edu.