Who’s steering this thing any way?
The summer after my eighteenth birthday, I stomped into a tattoo parlor on College Avenue, sat backwards hugging the back of a plastic-wrapped chair, and powered through my second tattoo. Despite the cliché and my best efforts, the tattoo is not an imprint of youthful invincibility, but my first admission of what little control I will ever have over my own life.
Months prior to getting my tattoo, I shattered my teenaged rose-colored glasses (and other things) in a serious car accident. It was the type of accident that left scars deep and wide on several different appendages and which brought me back to the nest to be fed slowly by a caring mother. A couple of weeks into the spring semester of my freshman year, my sudden return home indefinitely delayed all sorts of goals I had for my first year of self-sovereignty. My one way flight out of the nest was cancelled. The tattoo should have been my stamp of entry into adulthood, but I was denied admission until further notice.
I was of voting age, peering out windows I crawled out to escape when I was twelve, fourteen, sixteen. True, I was not yet accustomed to living on my own, but I had years of experience in waiting for my time to leave.
I realize now that my crashing reversion was at least equally difficult for my parents. Like they had for years, they drove me places, they gave me things, they imposed rules, we ate dinner together. But during this surprise stage of my adolescence, they also needed to figure out how to help me bathe, style my hair, and stitch together pajamas that would fit over my casts stirring the least amount of humiliation, the fewest tears. Surely, this was one of the greatest tests of their lives too.
And so for over four months, I found privacy in a spacious room they thoughtfully refurnished for me and my wheelchair, rather than a cramped, shared college dorm room. I sipped on tea passed gently to my shaky left hand, rather than jungle juice shoved at me suspiciously by a frat boy. I read novels and poetry to pass the time, rather than overpriced textbooks to pass uninteresting required courses.
There is no debate that my living arrangements were auspicious, and this fortune made me feel guilty for wanting to be elsewhere on my own. But I couldn’t help it. While my parents showed unending patience, maneuvering braces, pain killers, eye drops, I stewed. I should have been away, properly struggling my way into character, making my own decisions, learning to adult.
It wasn’t fair. And there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
I regained most of my mobility by the start of the summer, so I caught up on my lost semester by renting an apartment and taking a full load of credits. Naturally, I went to get my tattoo immediately to further demonstrate that I was not derailed.
The tattoo artist was slightly older and more impatient. The entire establishment existed on embarrassing Rutgers students into putting ink where their loud mouths were. The artists rudely ignored patrons until a cash deposit was placed on the counter. I had no income, but to be taken seriously I fanned all of the cash I’d taken from my parents and could afford to divert away from approved expenditures. I negotiated redrawing my first tattoo at no extra cost since it was done under far less official circumstances and needed to be freshened.
Sitting in that chair with the tattoo gun humming at the tip-top of my spine, I understood that the world did not turn on fairness and being an independent individual was a delicate and impermanent thing. There were some decisions I could make for myself (the tattoo), but the most resounding ones were made for me (the accident). Adulting meant to progress through those unfairly flung affairs with my parents’ graceful fortitude, a skill I knew I didn’t have yet. The tattoo didn’t prove I was an adult; it just bookmarked when I no longer naively expected to wake up as one.
Over two weeks after I got my tattoo, my mother convinced me to confess to my father. Now that things had shifted back to our pre-accident norms, I was home briefly some weekends and purposefully in my stern father’s waking presence for less than 45 minutes of my visiting time. I knew he would not take the news well.
To broach the subject, I asked him what he thought of a hypothetical plain black cross tattoo on the back of my neck. I suggested that it would be playful but discrete, and the religious undertones would be inoffensive. When he dismissively disagreed, I unveiled my tattoo.
My father paced and yelled unintelligibly. He mumbled and tousled his hair. He swung up and down the stairs like he’d forgotten what he meant to get from either up or downstairs.
Finally, he said,“This is a sin, Monica!”
Although I pointed out that my first tattoo (also a plain black cross) was similar and embraced by our church leaders, he sent me immediately to my father of confession for a prophylactic absolution. I had not anticipated going from one confession to another, but I backed my Celica out of the garage and headed to church to appease my father, who screamed, “NO PIERCINGS, DON’T EVER COME HOME WITH A PIERCING,” as I made my way down Elm Avenue.
I sat down with Father Athanasius alone in his office, as I’d done about once a month for years. He was an imposing man with the darkest and deepest set eyes and a flouncy beard that he pulled for emphasis. I recited the same litany of things I felt somewhat guilty about but did any way each month. Before he clonked me on the forehead with his silver handheld cross to dismiss me, I told him I had one more thing to talk about, something I wanted to confirm was not in fact a sin. I turned around and showed him my tattoo.
“Why didn’t you ask me if it was a sin before you got it?” he asked.
“Because you would have stopped me and I wanted it.” I confessed.
“You are old enough to make decisions for yourself, Monica. But the most important part of becoming an adult is coping when you can’t have what you want.”
“I know.” I said. I really do.