Colourful Reminders of Days Gone By...

Tomorrow one of my youth girls is coming over to show me her new tattoo. This is the same wonderful youth that cured me of my nail biting with her engaging tale of parasite worms forming in the stomach and having to crawl their way out of the throat to be released. She’s pretty colourful on her own, without the help of a tattoo artist. I have been practicing my supportive, so-happy-for-you look all day. Words like “Oh wow” and “well look at that…it’s a tattoo!” have been swirling around in my brain. Don’t I sound like a supportive youth leader? Well, truth be told, I tried all I could to talk her out of it. I gave her all the “for the rest of your life” speeches, and scared her with vivid word pictures of what her tattoo would look like to the aides in the nursing home 60 years from now. But she was not dissuaded. I know we all make choices, and we all have things that we think are “so cool”. I guess I am just glad that the “cool things” of my youth are not permanently attached to my body to carry around with me for years to come. I am so glad that I have been able to leave the jelly shoes, tye-dyed t-shirts, and Farrah Fawcett hair “feathering” behind for only the old photographs to reveal to the world. Can you imagine if you were forced to have the same hairstyle for 60 years, just because there was one point in your life that you thought it was cool and everyone was doing it? Just something to think about…