Tolerance and Acceptance: My Christmas Miracle

In keeping with the positive tone I'm setting for this new year (wonder how long it'll last), I should mention that there was a Christmas miracle of sorts for me this year.

Anyone who knows me (which is very likely none of you) knows that I love tattoos. I have six so far and I plan on many, many more. Addicted? Maybe. But each tattoo means something to me and I'm very proud of them. My mother? You can say that she's less than enthusiastic. This has always cut me deep, even if I understand why. But my tattoos are part of me. Hating them and expressing it is the same as telling me I'm too ugly or too short, or too anything (or not enough) for your liking. It's personal and it hurts - even more so because these tattoos are something I chose. The truth is that when I got my first tattoo, she cried and called me a branded cow.

Before everyone gets up in arms about it, you have to understand that her generation viewed it as something associated with the morally corrupt, the criminals and scum of the world. Honestly, they seem to have overlooked the sailor niche - which is bizarre for my family because they've been Navy for generations and generations. (But I digress.) Not only did her generation frown on it, her strict (and sometimes emotionally and physically abusive) family loathed anything out of the "norm." They were straight laced, Christian, military family with dark dynamics that we won't go into. So, needless to say, my mother learned a lot of things were "bad" that are now considered acceptable. Tattoos, for one.

Now, I'd been working on her for quite some time. I'd been saying that I want to get more tattoos, discussing which ones, talking about my old ones, and so on. Mostly trying to get her to expect more and not be so shocked, but also to try to get her more comfortable with the idea in general.

So here we are at the table at my in-laws', playing a game one of our friends got in the Christmas exchange game we do every year. It's warm and I tugged up my fleece leggings to cool off. And that's when she noticed the ghost tattoo on my leg that I've been hiding for six months (that my childhood friend drew custom for me out of the blue; so it's really special to me and an honor to have had him tattoo it on me). And she's predictably upset. She goes on, as usual, to say that I should stop getting tattoos. They're atrocious and in poor judgement. "And I don't really like any of them. Except that one." And she actually touches my forearm on the tattoo - something she's always avoided since I started getting them. Lo and behold, it's my very first tattoo - The Cruxshadows tri-fix.

"The symbol for our band is a cross (a tri-bar Eastern Orthodox cross, to be precise) with a field of light on one side and a field of dark on the other. What is important here is the idea of exclusion - or outsiders - because when all is flooded with light, the cross will still render a shadow; a place the light can't reach." - Rogue, lead singer of The Cruxshadows

This gives me hope. Not just for my mum to like and accept my tattoos. It makes me hope that people who have learned to hate something (or some people) their whole life can learn to change and accept it if they're exposed to it enough and are taught more about it. It makes me hope that knowledge can chase away fear and hate, and exposure can lead to acceptance. If my mum can learn to love tattoos, which she cried about and hated and verbally denounced every chance she had, then maybe people who spew hate and prejudice can learn to overcome it. Maybe, just maybe, they can learn to see people as people - no matter if they have different social status, skin color, or ways of expressing themselves. No matter if they come from far away, or love someone that was once thought unacceptable.

That would really be a miracle.