My grandpa sports the tiniest semicolon you’ve ever seen, a mark of his love for me. It represents the relief she now feels knowing her daughter has recommitted to life. My mother’s most recent tattoo is almost identical to my own: Her story isn’t over. Three generations of whores and sailors are now a part of my family, linked by our semicolon tattoos. The inked bracelet encircling my wrist reminds me that as low as I once fell, I ultimately realized I could handle all the ups and downs as the adult that I have become. However, as I worked tirelessly on myself, I decided to use it as a promise to myself. The moment I discovered project semicolon, I thought of it as something I would obtain later in life, after I had gotten better. The sentence is your life, and you’re its author. In Bleuel’s vision, a semicolon continues a sentence, in contrast with a period, which ends it, full stop. In its essence, the movement has become a symbol to raise suicide awareness. After two half-assed suicide attempts and months of struggling with the turmoil that caused them, I came across a website for Project Semicolon, a movement established by Amy Bleuel. Now I gaze down at my left wrist: the black ink standing out against my porcelain skin. My grandpa still didn’t like the idea of tattoos, and insisted that his be as small as possible, but he decided to embrace his inner sailor to support me. He lay on his side on the table, pants pulled down to expose his hip, a joint that had been replaced with a new and improved metal version only a few years earlier. The expression on his face revealed how uncomfortable and horrified he was to find himself, or any members of his family, in such a disreputable establishment. He was 85 years old and immensely out of place in the tattoo parlor in his pressed slacks, tucked-in button-down shirt, and driving gloves. I’ve only seen his tattoo once - the day he had it done - but that’s okay. The tattoo became his stamp of solidarity with his granddaughter after I fell apart. My grandpa’s not a sailor, but he decided to have his tattoo inked onto his left hip because he loves me deeply. There, above her left breast was a ying-yang that announced her newfound belief that she was her own person and could make her own choices, a concept I would not understand until I was much older. But, newly divorced, she was embracing her independence as fully as a single mother with two children could. She didn’t ride on motorcycles or smoke cigarettes. Why was my mom here? She wasn’t the kind of person who got tattoos. What was I doing here? I was far too young to be here. I was mortified by what I saw around me: vulgar images of naked women, skulls, and motorcycles. Seven years old, I sat in a dark, smoky room with my thirteen-year-old sister as our mother got her first tattoo. My mom must be either a whore or a sailor because I’ve been to the tattoo parlor with her at least five times. My grandpa believes tattoos are only for whores and sailors.
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