Etched in Becoming

Tattoos, Transformation and finally living like I mean it

There’s something funny about how often strangers stop me.
It happens everywhere; the grocery store, the gym, an ice cream shop, even a highway rest stop.

Even my kids roll their eyes when another person stops to ask me about my tattoos or my hair.

“Your tattoos are beautiful,” they say. “What do they mean?”

And depending on the day, I’ll give a short answer.
Because how exactly do you explain to a total stranger that your skin is your autobiography?
That this ink is the story of your grief and your becoming.
That these sleeves are protection spells.
That the placement of each symbol is deliberate. That the pain was part of the ritual.
That it’s not decoration, it’s declaration?

The short version is: they mean everything.
They’ve marked turning points. Closed chapters. Created openings.
They’ve helped me find my way back to myself.

Every single one was done by the same artist.
Because when someone doesn’t just tattoo skin but tattoos your soul onto your body, you don’t let them go. You hang on.

These are my story.
Written in ink.
And I’m still becoming.

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My Right Arm – My Dominant Side. The Doing Arm. The Protector

This is my power arm. My reaching, building, breaking-cycles side.

On my outer forearm sits an owl; one of my spirit animals.
Not the wide-eyed mascot version. The real kind, the kind that sees what others don’t.
She’s strength, patience, stillness, and sharp truth.
In Buddhist symbology, the owl is wisdom in darkness. The one who can sit with what’s unclear and not flinch.
She acts only when necessary.
She’s not loud. But she’s never unsure.
I’ve spent years becoming her.

Beneath her, a rose.
It was one of my mother’s favorite flowers (yellow roses to be exact). She died too young; at 54.
The owl guards it. Protects it.
This placement reminds me that I am now the matriarch.
The one who carries forward the lineage.
The one who must speak hard truths and soften generational trauma.

Next, a stack of books with a cup of cappuccino on top.
That one’s a love letter to my childhood safe space: the library.
Back then, I didn’t have much; not money, not stability, not shoes without holes.
But in the library, I could disappear into stories. No questions asked.
Books took me places poverty couldn’t.
And the coffee? It’s what slows me down now. Forces me to sit, breathe, and not bulldoze through life.
That one’s placed on my inner bicep a soft, protected place. Because those parts of me deserve shelter.

On my shoulder, a Hamsa hand with the evil eye.
A spiritual boundary.
A protective amulet across many traditions.
It shields the giving side of my body, my dominant arm from those who wish to extract without giving.
It says: I see you. And I choose what energy I receive.

On my inner forearm, there’s a compass and a pocket watch, both facing inward.
They are not for show. They are for soul.
The compass reminds me to follow inner truth, not external maps. That I don’t need a roadmap. Just direction. Just instinct. Just the reminder that veering off the main road is the only reason I’ve gotten where I am.
To walk my own path, even when it’s not linear.
The watch is a Buddhist nod to impermanence.
Time moves. Everything changes.
What hurts now will pass. What feels small can grow.

Between them lives my Unalome; the first tattoo I ever got, in 2019.
It’s the Buddhist symbol of the path to enlightenment.
It spirals. Loops. Doubles back.
It’s messy. Just like healing. Just like identity. Just like me.
Eventually, it straightens. But not because life does.
Because you learn to walk it differently. It doesn’t promise perfection. It promises transformation through presence.

On my tricep, a feather pen, the start of a larger piece (in progress) eventually to be joined by torn pages and an ink bottle.
Its a nod to writing. To truth-telling. To the spiritual discipline of putting pain into language. A reminder that writing is both devotion and discipline. In Buddhist teaching, Right Speech is an ethical path.
It hurts. It heals. It demands more of me than anything else.
But it’s how I stay tethered. How I make meaning.
It’s not a hobby. It’s survival. It’s a reminder that the words are offerings and with love and time they will come.

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My Left Arm – The Receiving Side. The Dreaming Side. The Balance. The Not-So-Secret Strength.

This arm is softer. But don’t confuse that with weakness.
This side carries just as much power. It just moves quieter.
It’s where the sacred feminine lives. The place of holding, not pushing.

On my shoulder, a dreamcatcher.
Not a cute one. A real one. It’s not just a nod to ancestral symbols; it’s deeply intentional.
It protects the dreams I wasn’t supposed to have.
The ones others called impossible, unrealistic, irresponsible.
I’ve always been someone who dreams anyway. This piece reminds me that those dreams are still mine.
In Buddhist and Taoist thought, illusions cloud the mind. This catcher holds the boundary between what is sacred and what is false. It symbolizes discernment (the sacred act of filtering what gets in).
It protects what is precious.
It filters what tries to invade.
It reminds me to trust what’s meant for me and keep the rest out.

Flowing from inner bicep to tricep is a yin-yang.
A daily reminder that duality isn’t contradiction; it’s truth.
There is no light without shadow.
No calm without storm. The masculine and feminine. The giving and receiving. The action and rest.

In Taoism and Buddhism alike, the yin-yang teaches that balance isn’t about peace. It’s about presence. Balance is not stasis, it’s a living breathing dynamic.
Everything I am; mother and warrior, coach and chaos, soft and steel belongs.
This tattoo says: both can exist. And both do exist in me.

On my inner forearm, Ganesh who I honor in her feminine form.
She’s not just the remover of obstacles.
She’s a fierce protector of sacred beginnings.
She clears the path for what matters. And she holds space for what still needs time.
She reminds me that nothing is stuck unless I choose to stay stuck.
And she does it with strength and softness.
Like I’ve had to learn to do.

On the back of my forearm, a garden a few roses and loads of cherry blossoms.
Each bloom intentional.
The cherry blossoms especially speak to impermanence; one of Buddhism’s core truths.
They’re beautiful because they don’t last.
They remind me that grief is part of the bloom. And that letting go doesn’t mean forgetting.
This whole garden is a love letter to that balance.

Threaded through both whole sleeves: honeycombs.
Not just filler.
They’re sacred geometry.
Nature’s strongest structure, efficient, interconnected, quiet strength.
To me, they represent what’s often invisible but essential.
The systems that hold me together. The pattern behind the chaos. The structure underneath the soul work.

On my elbow, swirls; spirals in motion.
Not tight little loops. Wild ones. Messy ones.
Because life doesn’t move in straight lines.
It bends. Doubles back. Spins sideways.
And sometimes it feels like you’re not getting anywhere at all.

But in Buddhism, even samsara the endless cycle of suffering, birth, death, and rebirth offers a doorway to awakening.
Spirals aren't chaos. They’re momentum.
They mean you’re still moving. Still becoming. Still alive.

This ink is a reminder that the messy middle is the path.
And I wouldn’t want it to be any other way.

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And Then Came the Hair.

Yes, it’s real.
No, I didn’t dye it this way.

I went white at 18.
I dyed it for 25 years.
Because I thought I had to.
Because I thought people would take me more seriously if I looked the part. Besides people with white hair were OLD.

Then one day, I shaved it all off.
Every last strand.

It was the most liberating thing I’ve ever done. having each lock of hair fall to the ground - was like watching years of myself melt away - the part of self that spent years masking.

What grew back wasn’t just hair.
It was me.

Now I wear a fauxhawk.
Not for fashion.
But because I can’t stand anything on my neck.
I’m extremely sensory sensitive; fabric, tags, ponytails, heat, it all makes me want to crawl out of my skin.
So I shave the sides and back every two weeks. Let the top grow wild.
It’s not a look. It’s nervous system regulation.

But just like the tattoos, it stops people.
And just like the tattoos, it isn’t for them.

It’s for me.
It’s about living in a body that finally feels like mine.

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This Is Alignment. This Is Becoming.

If you told me ten years ago that I’d leave corporate life…
Walk away from a six-figure salary and the degrees that came with it…(along with the 100k student loan price tag)
Become a professor, a coach, a founder, a mother to four neurodivergent kids, and a woman who helps others learn to stop hiding…

That I’d shave my head, grow a fauxhawk, stop dying my hair, and tattoo both arms, my back, and my thigh…

I would’ve laughed.
Or cried.
Or asked if you needed a psychological evaluation or a institution.

But here I am.

Not just surviving.
Not performing.
Living.
On purpose.

Every tattoo is a marker. A memory. A mirror.
Every strand of silver hair is evidence that I no longer hide from myself.
Every choice I make with my body - whether inked, shaved, or sacred - is intentional.

Because this body is mine now.
And I finally know how to live in it.

I don’t know what comes next.
I don’t know where I’ll land, or what version of me will show up next season, next year, or even next week.

But I do know this:

I will not shrink again.
I will not perform palatability to make others more comfortable.
I will not pretend I don’t know what I know.

I will keep honoring this body, this brain, this truth—one symbol, one spiral, one season at a time.

Because becoming isn’t a before-and-after story.
It’s a life-long ritual.

And I’m still in it.

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Thanks for reading.
If this resonated with you; whether you're inked, silver-haired, neurospicy, or just in your own season of becoming, I’d love to hear your story. Feel free to drop a comment or share this with someone who needs to know they’re not alone in figuring it out, either.

We don’t owe the world neat narratives.
But we do owe ourselves truth.