inked.

I want a tattoo.

I'm going to pause here while my mother and other family members peel their jaws off the floor.

I do; I really want to get inked. A few of my friends have tattoos, and, for the most part, it has fed my desire.

(there are exceptions, of course: unfortunately, I have friends who had the poor judgement to slap a barbwire tat around their bicep, or something of that nature... as far as I know my friends are tramp-stamp-free, though, so that's a plus)

Meanwhile, my cool friends have cool tattoos. One of my friends has "Serve Christ" on her wrist in Hebrew. What a neat witness: What does your tattoo say? Funny you should ask, it's about Jesus... know Him? Another girl I knew in college had 'My daughter, your faith has healed you' inked across her foot in Italian.

Here are the common denominators: Christian message, foreign language.

If I were ever to pull the trigger, I'd have to put some serious thought into it. I don't want to just pick a generic "Bible word" and a random language; it would have to be something deeply personal to me (hello, if you're going to have needles searing into your flesh, it better be important).

Meanwhile, I can't decide what color I want my hair to be or where I want to meet Tyler for lunch tomorrow, much less what word I want carved into me for the rest of my life.

So, bummer, I may never realize my dreams of hitting up the tattoo parlor.... but I also won't be 84-years-old explaining to my grandchildren that the wilted flower on Nana's sagging tummy was once a beautiful butterfly in flight.