My first Post!

My first post is a comment to a post on my brother Kirk's Blog page.
He wrote his observations about tattoos and piercings and it touched me personally.

I've included a link to his Blog page as well to view his post:

Paradoxical Observation : Tatoos everywhere
http://www.kirkhaselden.com/blog/

My response:

I have a tiny, tiny tattoo on the small of my back, probably no bigger than half an inch in diameter……………One pink heart with a smaller red heart off set inside of the pink one. The pink one is for Adam and the red one is for Bret, my two sons that have passed. Mytattoos are just for me, symbolic and personal.
I have my navel pierced also; I wear a small diamond inside, like an earring for my belly, very pretty and feminine. It doesn’t seem a lot different to me than ear piercing……………… (makes me keep my tummy in shape too!)

These things were done later in life with much contemplation, and I must admit – I love them and I’m happy I did it.
It was difficult for me, however, to do something that society still has a stigma about. I’ve always been one to worry so much about what others thought of me.

Having revealed all this – I have to admit, - I don’t understand gaudy tattoos in very conspicuous places on the body and face piercing. I guess maybe I’m a bit of a hypocrite. Then again I don’t understand why anyone would paint their house neon yellow or hot pink, or drive a truck jacked up 8 feet in the air, or a barbell mustache………………or, well……………I could go on and on………………………... beauty is in the eye of the beholder …………self expression and all that jazz……………….some people love their self expression so much that they want to share it and say to the world “this pink house is who I am, not the neighbor next door whose house looks like two hundred other houses, and my mustache is the same kind that my great, great grandfather sported and he was a great, great man that I admired, or the huge tattoo on my breast of a flowering rose bud is symbolic of my coming into my own and taking charge of my life after surviving breast cancer.”

I actually asked them – why did you paint your house pink, and why the barbell mustache, and “pretty rose – but why the chest?” Those were the answers I got. My thought was “how brave.”

I’m like a lot of folks in my generation that don’t understand rap, pants that bag down below knees (looks like they’re wearing a diaper with a heavy load), or lip piercing that make a person look like Frankenstein’s long lost cousin. I will never paint my house pink, put a lift kit on any vehicle, mustache myself in any way (maybe my body will have a different opinion on this one). But with age and my own self evolution, independence and voyage into self expression, I’ve softened my view on many things.