Isn’t it amazing how the years pass us by? It seems like it was only yesterday when I was young, vital, energetic, and hip. I knew everything that was going on and wanted to stay up all night, every night. Now, here I am, surfing the web and doing a little online shopping. I guess this happens to all of us. We get older, more tired, and more apt to “go with the flow”. Well, I was tired of being like that, so I made a change. A big change. I got a tattoo.

For those of you who are a little more “with it” than I am, maybe you got a tattoo years ago, but I didn’t. I had always thought that body art tattoos were for rockers and I certainly wasn’t one of them. I also thought they were for big tough guys and I wasn’t one of them either.

But, I have seen enough rock stars and professional athletes running around to know that body art tattoos are now acceptable by almost anyone (OK, so I won’t get a job in a bank with a tattoo running down my arm, but I can live with that!).

I decided to use my much-honed internet skills and searched for tattoo designs online. I came across Tattoomenow.com, which has a catalog of several thousand tattoos. They are separated into specific categories: religious, athletic, Asian, vine, barbed wire, etc. I was able to find one that I loved and I took my design down to the local tattoo parlor and made a commitment to being young again. I can’t lie to you and tell you it wasn’t painful. It was horrendous. The longest two hours of my life. I came out of it, though, with a nice piece of body art and a small piece of my youth recaptured.

By Alexis Anderson