Recently I got a tattoo and everyone has been wondering what it is or why I got it.  I haven’t explained it to many people because I just haven’t had time to fully explain it.  There are so many things someone must know to understand why I got that tattoo.  It is not something simple to me.  I mean I planned it for 8 years, so what can you expect?

When I was very young, around the age of 4, I took father and daughter guitar lessons with my dad.  I don’t really remember the classes, but one day has always stood out to me more than others.  My dad and I went to the class, then went to the fair after.  We got mint chocolate chip ice cream and I just loved spending the day with my dad.  The main focus of the day was music, but that was most days for us.

Another really strong memory I have with my dad is painting with watercolors.  We painted together so many times that I don’t have just one day I can recall.  All I remember is painting with him.

He was very artistic. In fact, I think that I got my artistic side from him.  We used to always jam out to “Iron Man” by Black Sabbath in his car and look at nature together.  We always talked about how beautiful nature was.  Our favorite colors were green and blue because they were always in nature and we both had beautiful blue eyes.

In 2011, God decided that it was time for my dad to go home.  I tried to follow him multiple times, but luckily I failed.

Now that I got the background information out of the way, I think I can actually explain my tattoo.

My tattoo is a black bass and treble clef that resemble a heart with blue, green, and purple watercolors behind it on my forearm.  It sounds simple, but it really isn’t.

I have known since I was 10 I wanted a heart for my dad but I did not know what kind.  I decided that when I saw the music heart that I knew it was perfect.  I feel most connected to him through any sort of art.

The bass clef has low notes in music while the treble has high notes.  This is to remind me that there are lows in life, but there are also highs.

The bass clef normally has a colon at the end, but I decided to make it a semicolon because there is a very famous project known as The Semicolon Project, which raises awareness for suicide victims and survivors.  After my father passed, I thought I could not handle life without him, but I can and the semicolon is a reminder that I can.

The watercolors in the back are not just cool colors to me.  Whenever I see blue and green together, I always think of my dad so I thought they were the only fitting colors to have.  I added purple as a sort of transition color.

The reason I am calling them watercolors is because they look like splashes of watercolors.  The reason I added them was not just for a pop of color.  It was because some of the best memories I have of him are when we were painting together and most the time we used watercolors.

The placement is not random either.  I know to some people it is dumb to have a tattoo so visible, but I do not care.  It is visible in most dresses, but I want it that way.  My father cannot walk me down the aisle so having the tattoo on my arm out in the open is the closest I will ever get.