All Grown Up

Devon’s Rite of Passage: Dec. 19th, 2010

I held her hand, and stroked her hair and watched as my babies eyes welled with tears. She bit her lips and the pillow to try and stifle the screams, but they escaped into the night anyway. The living room was transformed into a make shift studio as her step father diligently and carefully performed the tattoo he had been promising her for nearly 10 years, over half of her life. It was a very big tattoo of a beautiful dragon.

The specific design had a lot of meaning for my daughter and her father. It had long, thin, straight lines connecting the wings that wrapped around her leg. Long, thin, straight lines have to be completed in a single stroke and tend to push the pain tolerance of the most seasoned ink fans. My daughter looked at me, quaking with trust, and pain, and fear and anxiety and my already wounded heart melted into a puddle. Why had I talked her into this? How could this possibly be the right decision? What kind of selfish mother was I, to arrange for my Ex to do this kind of thing to my child?

My heart slid down my leg and got lost in the carpet for a while... But I kept eye contact and counted her through slow, even breathing without crying. Sometimes I think the older we get the weaker and more sentimental we become. How can I in my early forties be so mushy soft and yet so bitter and cynical compared to the cool aloofness of my youth? At the same time, I seem to get hurt easier, deeper and have more trust when perhaps I shouldn't. I feel less certainty about right and wrong and a direction in life. Silly me, I thought it would all get better with age and experience. Perhaps it was the lack of a recognized rite of passage into my own adulthood. Or becoming to responsible from to young an age. I jumped from childhood, to housekeeper, to built in babysitter, to parenthood. My wings clipped when I wanted freedom, and my earth ever gone when I wanted to land.

I sought my first tattoo, in my late twenties, after my first marriage had dissolved and I needed to recognize myself, and my independence. I knew it was a rite of passage I wanted, the pain, the process, the sense of accomplishment and belonging to myself. Something I didn't get to experience as a teenager. Earning my identity, I got a whole lot more then I bargained for. My rite of passage wasn't a solitary isolated event, but a journey that lasted a decade. I got quite a few tattoos, two new careers, and eventually a second marriage from taking that step when I did.

The change I had sought, came over me like a wave on a vast ocean, unstoppable and completely natural seeming. Much of it shaped who I was to become, but the lessons were harsh and came with a new level of responsibility. A slow, rolling tsunami, that entire experience eventually cannibalized the rest of my life. Bit by bit, as the years progressed I was absorbed, assimilated, broken apart, and re-made as someone else saw me, and wanted me to be. As my identity receded, my weight increased until I was the insecure and invisible whale of 250 pounds with a pretty face. Totally forgettable to all who met me. Meanwhile, my peacock of a husband strutted about with his own identity issues, oblivious to my needs and offending most of our tiny town. I ran around making apologies, smoothing things over, and trying to raise my daughter to be stronger and wiser then myself.

Somehow, I did succeed with that one important task, and that is a lot to be thankful for. She walks a different road, in a tougher world then most of us did; and by the grace and blessing of the magic of life, has gotten there far better prepared then most of us. My daughter is strong, brilliant, beautiful and brave. She loves deeply and fully, knows when and whom and how to trust appropriately. And how to ask for what she wants. She will always stand up for her friends, and won’t back down even in the face of her own fears. She gives wise and sage advice, even to me, and knows how to get what she wants. She is genuinely kind, but most importantly, she is nobody’s fool. I am proud and envious together. I wish I had half her grace, charm, poise and chutzpah.

Perhaps this rite of passage that I arranged for her, was just another one of my own in disguise. She already had it pretty together. I know this was just a small piece of my daughters journey, and my own. This important event was several promises kept, and one more piece of closure between me and my Ex. Certainly for Devon, it opened the door for a whole new way of approaching life and handling fear, and upholding the Bohemian ideals of truth, freedom, beauty and love -Her thoughts. (Yes. I am quoting Moulan Rouge, deal with it.) And maybe a little for me too. "The greatest thing we'll ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return".

Devon survived her first tattoo just fine, and my bruised hands and heart will heal again, just like the ink. But it was rough for all of us, the artist, the client the hand holders, the mom... But while the rest of us were running for tequila and cigarettes once it was over, Devon proudly declared that she loved her dragon, and had no regrets. Her leg all red against her super pale, milk like skin, and her face puffy with tears and 2 hours of intense pain. It doesn't always hurt that bad. We moved a lot of repressed energy from her past. From our collective pasts. It really was a rite.

I watched through the window, tears in my eyes as I sucked down a stress cigarette, and allowed my own repressed sobs to escape. Devon turned her leg this way and that, taking pictures with her phone and sending them to her friends. “I’m a bad ass”. She told them. "You wouldn't have been able to handle it." Her tears were finally all gone, replaced with pride and pleasure and snark. “Now all I need is a leather jacket and nice bike. You know, Christmas is coming..."

At last I knew she was fine. The horrid mom-guilt subsided. I laughed, pulled on my game face and went inside.