joy, or something like it

what does that tattoo mean you asked and after giving you shit about not knowing your bible verses and then covering by implicating myself for perhaps being odd for knowing many verses i let you know what it meant but the larger question was why it was there.

being new to me and not realizing that although i play the cool geek card quite well thank you very much that under the clothes is an array of ink and meaning and i always say that i wear my heart on my sleeve but in actuality i wear it on my skin and had you met me during the summer you’d have known this already.

as you now know the ink is not of the skulls and dragons and biker variety but rather is comprised of the things that i need to see when i look in the mirror in order to get me though the day in a clinical depression version of a twelve step program. i need to see ‘may your light so shine before others that they may see your good works’ or ‘blessed are the merciful for they will receive mercy’ backwards in the mirror as i brush my teeth so when the shit piles on during the day i can recall that the purpose for sending myself into the world each day is to serve others and i don’t mean my boss.

you’ve been surprised by my ability and desire to in your words call it out every chance i get and since my kids hear 'be a fountain not a drain' a dozen times each week i’d be a hypocrite if i failed to tell you each day how beautiful you are and i’m not talking about your hair or skin or how your eyes crinkle up when you smile and melt my heart.

if this stuff had not been dug into my skin where i could see it each day i would not have the guts or the glory to minister to people in this way and i have to because after a dozen years in a chemically imbalanced - and isn’t that a dumb term because sadness is not a chemical or at least it’s not on the periodic table - haze and tired of what the pharmaceutical industry provided as a solution that was actually worse than the disease i had to dig out myself and ink and flesh was the beginning.

so that leaves me with the one that you asked about because rather than being spelled out like the others or easy to figure out like a love/pain ambigram it simply says psalm 30:5. since i do not hide the fact that my affliction has had a tremendous negative impact on my life career family and mind i also have to be thankful that the same affliction has made me a better and more caring and more feeling and more loving person able to find the good in others regardless of how long it takes them to show it and then hug them once they are strong enough to put it on display.

so while i sit here alone and my kids live a mile away all i have to get me through is ‘weeping may endure the night but joy comes in the morning’.