So, many of you noticed in the photo below my amazing gymnastic prowess and the (not so little) tattoo on my belly.
I got that tattoo in 1994. The summer of my nervous breakdown. The summer that changed my life forever. The summer that i was diagnosed as "the crazy one." Really, that's what my doctor said. Or something confusing from the DSM.
Anyway, shane and i had been dating for a couple of years and had moved to victoria together. I was graduating from university and facing a crisis of personality. I didn't know how the hell i was going to live without school. I loved university. I loved being able to blend in. Hide in the corners. Be a little weird. Have my own radio show. Go to see bands play every night. Write poetry. Live off of student loans and housecleaning gigs. Life was not abundant, but it was comfortable.
Then it all fell apart. I started to feel like i had done log rolls down hills; all dizzy and prickly with a sharp sting of despair. I started having anxiety attacks and was overcome by a debilitating depression.
I tried desperately to feel better and would ride my bicycle around downtown victoria, buying a couple bottles of beer and hiding out with a guy who owned an art gallery with little rooms in the back that were rented out by all kinds of creepy artist types. It had at some point been a meat locker and processing plant. One night in a manic fit i walked out on shane and moved into the meat locker art gallery.
I got that tattoo on my belly. It's a phoenix/tribal thing. The guy who did it said "you better not ever have kids." I couldn't imagine living long enough to have kids. I so desperately wanted to be free of the hurt in my head and my heart. I remember very vividly getting that tattoo. I couldn't feel a thing. I was so numb that the normal pain associated with getting a tattoo was non-existent.
That summer went on forever. Shane and i got back together. I came back to him a broken woman. He helped me to find the strength to get better. To take care of myself. He even proposed to me one morning in the shower. I was a shadow of my former self then, physically and mentally. I lost forty pounds that summer.
When we got married ten months later i promised him that i would always love him for the way he helped me and forgave me for the things i had done and the way he loved me so gently and perfectly. He hates my tattoo. It reminds him of that time. A time when he lost me for awhile.
Posted by Jess at 05:20 PM Permalink
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perhaps it isn't supposed to be, but it is a romantic story.
we each have scars - yours is illustrated...
Posted by blackbird | June 12, 2006 06:43 PM