My tattoos tell a story. They tell my story, but almost more than that. My existing tattoo is for my brother, but it's symbolic of more than just my loss; it also represents the love that I have for family, etc. and tells a handful of other stories that are difficult to articulate. It says that I won't let go, that I won't forget, that I'll hold on. It says that I'll love him through memory because he's no longer here to love. Not to mention all of the stories that I'll never tell, refuse to share, can't share, for whatever reason. I can't share my entire life with you, nor would I ever want to.

But Matthew and I were practically twins, and being without him for the past two years has been nothing short of excruciating.  I play cavalier, big tough girl who just copes because there is no other choice; but I hurt. I hurt indelibly and I doubt there will ever be a time when that part of my heart doesn't hurt.

Sometimes I want to go in and have the tattoo gone back over to make physical that pain, to give it somewhere to manifest so that I can actually feel it.
Because I hate growing numb. I hate knowing that I feel things that I can no longer truly FEEL. I know I'm sad, and that it hurts, but I can't feel it anymore, and you can't understand how much that bothers me. It's a blessing, of course, but it's also a curse.

How would it make you feel, to know that you've grown incapable of feeling things? To know that you've grown numb in self-defense? Would that bother you? I don't LIKE being hard; I don't LIKE being callous. I don't like being broken. I want all of this to end, but it won't. It can't. It can never end because Matthew can never, ever come back into my life. And that makes me so sad that I can barely live with myself.

But yet, if I still did feel all of that pain, if I did still have to live with all of that every single day of my life, I would go insane, or I would wither away and die. Because my body simply couldn't take it. There comes a point in sorrow where it turns to physical pain, where emotional trauma begins to have side effects. It is good that my body has boxed it away and forgotten, but I still long for that pain because I need it to validate my continuation through life. I need it. I... I can't... be okay with not... feeling it.

I am so broken.

But I refuse to let this be the end of me. I will carry on and I will be all that I was meant to be, regardless of what I’ve lost, regardless of what I will inevitably lose. I am who I am because of tragedy and because of untouchable fate. It may shape me, but it will not define me, and it will not stop me.

Life may owe us nothing, and we may owe life everything we’ve got and more, but there is truth in this: It cannot screw me forever; at some point or another, there has to be a break in the storm, a clearing in the woods, a day without homework. I pray for monotony on the basis that it may allow me a moment long enough to recollect my courage, recollect my faith and my patience to continue the fight through turmoil.

My tattoos will tell that story, but inarticulately. Passersby will not look at the ink on my body and know that my life is pain. Passersby will see something else, because I allow them to. Because I force them to. Because I allow art to be arbitrary until you're in the know.

I am currently planning 2 more for the near future. One is small and simple, cute: an outline of a baby elephant holding its mother's tail; and might go on the inside of my wrist or heel--haven't decided. The other is an anchor with a rope that forms a loosely-adapted infinity sign with "Hebrews 6:19" etched into the length of the anchor. "We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure."

Life is full of hurdles, hoops and obstacles, but our path is forever calling us, forever begging us to carry forward. My stumbles and my detours will not forever deter me from the ultimate goal ahead. I will have my life, and I will live it well.