My tattoo is a mermaid and she swims on my lower back at the base of my spine. My mermaid stretches to the heavens with strong arms. Her breasts are bared and her tail is fully exposed, not hidden in the water as mermaids are often depicted. Her hair is streaming in blazes, like flames above her head. She is power and self-love. My mermaid is sexual beautiful and honest. She represents strength in what she is without changing or hiding.
When I was a child, Hans Christen Andersen�s The Little Mermaid was one of my favorite fairy tales. It mystified and terrified me at the same time. I remember the first time I heard the story. I listened in horror as The Little Mermaid slit her silvery tails and rubbed salt in the wound; and how she gave up her voice, gave up her family, and finally gave up her life for a prince who did not care for her. I sobbed for the mermaid because I saw what she couldn�t see in herself. She could sing; she had the most beautiful voice in the sea. She could swim as free through the depths as a bird soars through the sky. She had a family who treasured her. Yet, she gave it all up for a man who could not see her beauty. It wasn�t really his fault. The prince never got a chance to love the true Little Mermaid, because she had become a mute shell of the bold creature she originally was. How could she have been so blind?
How can women be so blind? All my life I watched my mother play out the Little Mermaid scenario again and again with men who were far from princely. They abused my mother and discarded her. But she didn�t fade into sea foam, she just became extremely depressed and dragged me through the cycle again and again, always hoping for an end other than self sacrifice and heartbreak. These situations are impossible for a child to comprehend. One so young, who is rightfully innocent should not be asked to understand romantic love or co-dependence, yet all fairy tales imprint it in our hearts until it seems right. My father completely neglected me and seeing how the Little Mermaid�s sad and disfigured fate was more common that Sleeping Beauty�s happily ever after, I watched relationships and men with cynicism.
And then it happened. At the magical age of 16, a knight broke the armor around my heart. The boy gave me the faith in men I�d never known. I fell in love. It was deep and it was true. But in order to hold on to that euphoria I began to cut my scales. The first cuts came as just compromises, but then they grew to cutting off pieces of me that didn�t fit into �us.� I wanted �us� so badly that I lost my voice. I finally understood my mother and the Little Mermaid. I understood why they sacrificed, and I was willing to take it as far as necessary. For five years I did my best to maintain happily ever after.
But my love was no Prince Charming anymore that I was a perfect princess. We grew up, he found another, and I was devastated. Truly crushed, shattered, and writhing on the floor, while the rest of the world went on shopping and eating at McDonalds. I lost faith in myself, and all of my fear and distrust of men returned ten-fold. I had a breakdown. I was admitted to a hospital because my family feared I would hurt myself. I wasn�t aware. I didn�t care. I wanted the sea foam of oblivion.
My cousin brought me a card with a mermaid on it. Somewhere in the back of my soul a door that had been locked and covered with cobwebs opened, and I heard the child in me sobbing for the woman I�d become. The woman who had given up her tail and her voice. Slowly, I began to regain pieces of myself that I�d cut away.
I now collect mermaids, and with each one I add to my collection I find some of the peace and clarity of my childhood. The crowning glory of my collection came one year after my break up. The anticipation of the acquisition was unbearable. Along with the pain came the knowledge that what I was about to get would follow me forever. My choice was made as a result of careful consideration and mirrored a meaning deeply personal to me. I went alone to the studio because such a personal event, I could not share. Whatever the outcome, I t was all mine.
With me went my story and the pictures I wanted the artist to consider. I also took my heart and soul and flesh to be used as a canvas for a painting I�d commissioned to be etched onto my spine. He prepared his needle. I signed releases. I admired the beauty of the intricate patterns that covered his arms. I was frightened, but I had faith in this artist, whom I did not know. He believed in his ability. He trusted himself to paint someone�s insides on their outsides.
He was ready. No turning back. I couldn�t abandon this mission. I straddled the chair with my jeans pulled low and my shirt tucked into the back of my bra. I was vulnerable, sexual, and stalwart at the same time. Adrenaline rushed through my veins. Realizing you are never going to be the same is a phenomenal rush.
My spine was sickeningly unprotected. The needle buzzed. I fought every natural instinct to run. And then the first sting hit.. I held my breath and my muscles as I became familiar with the pulsating pain of the needle. It felt like a vibrating bee sting and a tetnus shot combined, or a dentist�s drill with a fine point searing my skin cells with color.
At first I struggled to keep from jumping away from the pain, then gradually I was holding my body back from rushing into the needle. My breathing fell into rhythm with each stroke the artist scratched into my skin.
The pain transformed into colors and sounds. It opened a gate for me to feel every good or bad thing I have ever experienced. As my mermaid came to life on my skin I felt the fairy tale mermaid give up her tongue and her voice; I felt her tail be split up the middle; I felt the pain of my own silence and the ripping away of my childhood as I became a woman. For the two hours it took for my mermaid to become a part of me, the needle sang my spirit�s pain and released this energy. I bled, but did not cry as the point plunged. I meditated on the power we give up in order to feel loved and accepted, and realized that loving and accepting ourselves is what gives us true power. The power that allows us to love others and be loved by others.
When it was over I felt new, cleansed of so much. Terribly sore and still bleeding, I took myself to dinner. I know my mermaid has not given me super powers. I have no immunity to heartache. I fear, yet am hopeful, about falling in love again.
I know my voice may be quieted, but I will never silence myself again. My fins cannot be cut. They are etched too deep in my skin. Down to the bone.