A year ago today, I sat in
Bristol, VA, brimming with delayed teenage rebellion and the overwhelming desire
to do something slightly stupid and highly permanent. After Ashleigh got out of
classes, we were going to go together to get our first tattoos. I had made the decision weeks prior, but even
leading up to the moment, I was still trying to decide exactly what I was going
to do. The one thing I knew was that it
was going to be related to my family.
See, it was half a joke at
the time between Ashleigh and I, but we were going to run away to London. We
were going to graduate, sell what we could, and then we would just go. I wasn’t going to admit then just how serious
I was about the idea, because I knew that if I revealed such a fact to
Ashleigh, then she would make it happen.
After all, she was the one who got two fifteen year old girls to New
York City for a movie premiere when neither girl had a job, or an allowance of
any kind for that matter, all because we decided that we wanted to go stand and
scream at a red carpet. Ashleigh has
that kind of power. The only thing that
made me hesitate was my connection to my family. I didn’t want to leave them behind. In fact, it’s actually been the hardest part
of the past three and a half months, being so far away from my family.
In one way or another, my
tattoo always contained four letters, SJEJ, which stood for Susan, Jay, Ethan,
and Jessica. I had to limit it to just
my immediate family, or else the list would have gone far too long and not been
at all practical. The location changed several times throughout the decision
making process, including the morning of the 23rd. The color of the tattoo changed while I was
sitting in the chair, literally two minutes before needle hit skin. Ashleigh made faces at me while I was getting
it done—more to distract me from the nerves of “I can’t believe I’m actually
doing this” rather than from the pain. (All in all, it really didn’t hurt. Just
felt weird.) Now, I have SJEJ tattooed on my left wrist in royal blue ink, the
exact size to be perfectly hidden by my watch band.
The other day I told
Ashleigh I was considering running away to England again. Again, I’m not sure
if knows just how serious I am about the whole thing—but I know that if I
really want it, I can ask her to help me make it possible, and Ashleigh is good
enough to make sure I get there. After
all, I never thought I would get to stand at the edge of the red carpet for a
Harry Potter premiere, or have the guts to get a tattoo. And I think that marks a great friend.
<3
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