Tattoos, Piercings, and Wild Hair, OH MY!!

When you have kids you start to reflect on all the things you did as "kid" and then think about your own kids doing those things.  It is weird.  You evaluate things like curfews, driving, dating, etc.

I grew up in a conservative loving home.  (Yes mom and dad you read this and it was wonderful!)  My uncle would scare us with his smoking skeleton tattoo and tell us to never get one.  He would say, if you see someone with a tattoo, you know they have been drunk at least once.   We were not able to get our ears pierced until we were twelve, however my sister did get hers at eleven, which I will always remember.  But we were only allowed one piercing, it wasn't until later in high school I think that I actually got my ears double pierced which was pushing the envelope.  Growing up we had long hair and pig tails and barrettes and ribbons.  It was girly and traditional and I loved it. 

THEN . . this happened TATTOOS, PIERCINGS, AND WILD HAIR OH MY!!!

In college I got my first tattoo.  I didn't tell my parents for a long time for they were sure to say it was not what nice girls did.  I also got a belly button ring.  Which I also did not show them for a loooong time.  (Which was removed come pregnancy time).  Then in graduate school came the kiss of death.  The thing that would surely make  my mother faint.  The tongue ring.  (Which I did finally remove, because we did need some money for our wedding.  What can I say Mom played hard ball. HA!)   Then right before I was engaged I came home with some outrageous colored hair, which in the end was too much for me as well.

I look back on these things and laugh.  I laugh because through all of those things I was the same person, the same girl, the same heart with love for God, my family and others.  I had the same friends, I didn't do drugs.  All those nasty stereotypes about all those "bad" things did not apply to me.  They did not make me or change who I was created to be. 

I wonder why I did some of them.  Maybe why some people jump out of airplanes or jump off bridges on cords.  The thrill.  I don't regret any of them and I don't feel that any of them defined me or made me a "bad" or "evil" person.    Maybe I did it to see how far I could push the envelope.  Maybe to see if I did what my parents didn't want me to, if they would still love me the same.  I don't know.

What I do know is that they still love me.  We now laugh about those things, and even talk of another tattoo does not freak them out.  I have decided that the God I love is the same way.  We do a lot of wacky stuff, but I believe God doesn't say "that is it, you are cut off".  I think He knows us because he created us and loves us and knows who we truly are deep inside our hearts.

I am going to try and remember this when my sweet girl comes home with her own tattoo, piercings or wild hair, OH MY!!!!