The Very Wise Tattoo I got at age 21 (Really)

It’s 2009. I was a couple years out of college, living in a vintage studio apartment in downtown Portland, Oregon. I had followed my sister there, grasping onto her impulse decision to move to the West Coast as an answer to my post-grad lack of direction. I had fled my comfortable pack of college friends, my comfortable boyfriend, and the comfortable college phase where real life is suspended for four whole years of easy, hazy living.

The 1940s art deco building with the perfect, albeit tiny apartment had seemed the ideal back drop for some soul searching – and spending more time alone than I had in my entire life. The floors creaked, the single pane French windows opened onto a tiny courtyard, and the kitchen had peach tiles that were hard to clean but made me feel like I was exactly where I needed to be. There was a Trader Joe’s down the street and bars around the corner. The Trader Joe’s I frequented, but the bars I’d only imagine going to, since I had no friends and after four years of college, I didn’t really know how to make any.

After many weeks of searching and applying, I landed myself a remote work job before working remotely was even a thing. I put a brand new Macbook on my newly acquired credit card, got myself an internet connection, and became well acquainted with solitude. Turns out that sitting around waiting for something great to happen wasn’t as fruitful as I had hoped.

My new routine meant I generally swapped lazy, hungover mornings with roommates with mornings spent with my laptop on my couch. I cooked my own meals, fantasized about adopting a dog, and I read – a lot. It was then that I read one of those books that stops you in your tracks. A book that gets into your soul. A book that’s just in time, even though you might read it again later and it means totally different things to you.

The book was Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. The character of the book wasn’t like me, in fact he was very NOT like me – a young boy growing up in New York City and processing his father’s death post 9/11. He was an unlikely foil for me, I loved the writing, and I loved how the book explored the different ways that the boy’s mother and grandmother dealt with the same loss.

At one point in the book, the grandmother talked about the day she knew her son had died in the trade towers. She was watching the footage on TV, and said “I thought I would feel different. But even then, I was me.”

I froze when I read what she said. “But even then, I was me.” She thought she would feel a certain way, faced with tragedy, faced with a life-changing moment, that she would spring into action, do something, feel a certain way – but she didn’t. The person experiencing this moment wasn’t some future doppelganger who could move through it with ease, it was her. We always will be who we are…even when. We can’t design ourselves away. The things that happen to us in the future don’t happen to some stand-in version of ourselves, it happens to us, as we are.

At the time, I was thinking a lot about expectations and a lot about reality. And I still do. I think about how something feels when I picture it in my mind, how I think it will be. How I think things could be better if only I were x, if only I were y, if only I were z. I think about what it will be like as soon as I get to a certain place, have a certain thing, meet the right person. How if I’m wearing the right thing, say the right thing I could morph, change, become. I think about the things I want to be – someone who isn’t afraid of anything, someone who could talk to anyone, someone who could care less about what other people think.

At that moment, my life after college wasn’t what I imagined it to be. I thought moving to a new city would be the answer to my questions. My future doppelganger would meet the best friends, finally be a grown up having new adventures. And yet, I felt lonely, introverted, and unsure. As romantic as my little apartment was, it didn’t change me into a new person. The loveliness of walking into the door and taking in the parquet floors and little yellow bathroom faded over time and left me, unchanged. Listless.

And so, as an impulsive 21-year-old does, I headed to a tattoo parlor. I had the words, “But even then, I was me” tattooed on my rib cage, along with a swallow that represented their ability to always find home no matter how far away they fly. Did I partially think getting a tattoo would change me too? Probably. It was daring, it was a thing a certain kind of person did.

And years later, though the tattoo is faded, stretched and smudged (like the rest of me), I don’t regret marking myself with these words. In fact, these words mean more now than they did then.

The weight of expectations and reality just gets heavier the older you get. And entering motherhood, it reaches peak heaviness. The romantic pictures you paint in your mind of motherhood often come at stark contrast to how it really is. And the way you think you’ll be collides with how you really are. And even without you heaving enough expectations on yourself, the expectations of everyone else compound exponentially.

Mothers are expected to be good at everything, and to wear the role with ease. Be nurturing, endlessly patient, create boundaries but never yell, dress the kids in cute outfits, dress yourself in cute outfits, make holidays magical, be fun, be a good teacher, be a nutritious cook and a creative activity planner. And, be a good wife, too. And a good friend. And a good employee, daughter, neighbor, community member. Oh, and don’t forget to also enjoy every moment.

When I was young, I imagined the kind of mother I would be. My future mother doppelganger was the ones all my kids’ friends would love. The one who has the best, biggest house and makes the best snacks and knows everyone in the neighborhood. The mom who decorates for every season and sends care packages out on people’s birthdays (birthdays that she always remembers). The cool mom who knows all the gossip, throws the best birthday parties, and is friends with all the other moms. The supreme hostess.

Turns out, I’m not sure who that mom is but it’s not me. I’m still a little awkward around neighbors and kids alike. I get a little stressed when we host playdates. I don’t remember anyone’s birthday, and I didn’t throw Ellie a worthy birthday party until she turned four. There are a lot of things that don’t come easy to me. My future mom doppelganger seems to be stuck in traffic.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately, what would mothers’ lives be like if we could give ourselves the grace we give our children. We parent gently, tell our kids to accept their emotions and forgive their mistakes. We wait to see what they’re good at and what they enjoy, not pushing them into things that don’t suit their personality and their interests. We tell them they can be whatever they want to be, but don’t expect them to be everything. We tell them not to compare themselves to others – they can chart their own path.

So why do we, as moms, expect to be able to do it all, and do it all with the ease and effortless style of the Instagram creators we follow? What if I am not the hostess mom with the mostest? What if I am not the most fun mom, and don’t know what’s going on at any sporting event? What if I am only good at a few things, and not the rest?

I’m not saying that we can’t change over time, of course we do – we have to. We “contain multititudes,” after all. But change has limits, and change comes within the context of who we are deep down.

Sometimes I forget about my tattoo. Like I did when I was a fledgling 21-year-old living in a new town, I get a little lost in the world of expectations. Though my therapist tells me not to, I think in a lot of “I should’s.” And then I catch a glimpse of the little faded swallow and the words that, while they aren’t quite legible anymore, remind me that through all of it, through the expectations and disappointments and moments that stretch me beyond my limits, even then – I am me.