No Regrets

What a great name for a tattoo place.

I turned 35 a couple of weeks ago. I was really OK with the idea until last Christmas, when my aunt turned to me and said, "You're going to be thirty-five this year!!" in a way that made me suddenly think that turning 35 was not OK at all.

So maybe I rebelled a little bit. I felt the need to wear every mini-skirt in my closet at least one more time, because everyone knows women over 35 shouldn't wear mini-skirts. We had the coldest damned winter that I've seen in ten years in Memphis; it's a wonder I didn't end up with pneumonia.

A couple of weeks ago, as I was completing my Sunday ritual of buying a cup of coffee and a newspaper, I saw a woman with a tattoo of a cat on her ankle. Suddenly, I wanted one. Not a cat; I already have four. And not a tattoo of a cat; I'm really resisting the "crazy cat lady" label.

When I had my "one-third-life crisis" at the ripe old age of 28, I almost got a tattoo, but I chickened out and got my belly button pierced instead. I told my boyfriend at that moment (we broke up about three hours later) that if I ever changed my mind, I was going to make him go with me when I got my tattoo. He promised that he would, and he kept his word.

This time, I didn't chicken out. And 35 hasn't been such a bad year, after all.