I have tattoos.: Inspiration-Maker, Daughter, Human Resources Professional.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Inspiration-Maker, Daughter, Human Resources Professional.

I'm a 30-year-old professional woman working in health care human resources who got my first tattoo when I was around the age of 23. Using white ink, the tattoo artist scribed the word "inspire" in small letters on the inside of my wrist. Though it is not noticeble usually to anyone but me, it is a brand of sorts that reminds me each day to inspire the people around me as I go about my day to day activities.

On Dec. 31, 2011, my incredible 60-years-"young" father passed away after a 14-month battle with pancreatic cancer. Cancer ravaged his body, but never seemed to crush his spirit... even on his sickest days. He and my mother had an epic love story and in testament to that, he passed away at the exact time on the exact date that they had married 29 years before. Days after they first met in the early 1980's, my suave daddy sent my beautiful mom flowers with a card saying he would love to get to know her... with his very beautiful signature on the back.

This year, on what would have been his 61st birthday, my mom and I got tattoos of this exact signature to honor his life and the impact his love had on our family and friends.

I have tattoos.

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I have tattoos.

The most recent research shows 40 percent of Americans between 26 and 40 have at least one tattoo. That's nearly half of us. Furthermore, 36 percent of people between 18 and 25 do. Normal people. Successful people. Smart people. Truly, anyone.

Yet outdated stigmas and discrimination still exists, based solely on some people's unfounded misconceptions about the way a tattooed person looks -- completely disregarding the statistics, individual characters and the stories behind the tattoos.

Yes, tattoos are a choice. So is practicing a narrow perspective.

Perhaps the increase in tattoos amplifies some people's already prevailing prejudgments about people who look different than them. It's so much easier to write off a person based on something you, on the surface level, do not understand than it is to actually consider what lies underneath, below the skin.

This website was created after I witnessed an incident of discrimination against the "tattoo demographic," as a whole. This website is intended to help educate and dispel myths that you can even begin to classify people with tattoos in one "demographic," much less as all trouble-makers, all out for attention or in any way worth diminishing based on assumptions; no one deserves that.

Ultimately, this website is not even about tattoos, but it is about the real stories behind each person's surface. This website is not intended to convince anyone that they should get a tattoo, or that they should even like tattoos if they don't choose to get one themselves.

After all, as the saying goes, the only difference between people with tattoos and people without tattoos is that people with tattoos don't care whether or not other people have tattoos.