My Tattoo

As promised, I'm sharing my tattoo story.

In the summer of 2007, I spent some time in Costa Rica on a community development project. I stayed with a small host family and worked on a variety of tasks - helped develop an addition to the community center, painted the local citrus packing plant, and taught English to the village children.

I danced with enthusiastic ticos, ate such wonderful food, sang every Bob Marley song ever written, and laughed harder than I ever imagined.

It was a wonderful experience and I met the most lovely and genuine people during my stay there. At the end of the project, I was given the opportunity to partake in some "adventure touring." We did snorkeling, white-water rafting, waterfall rappelling, all of it. I won't lie, I wasn't crazy about the rappelling. We were hundreds of feet in the air, looking down into this canyon below. I was one of the first to strap up and head towards the side of the cliff, reminding myself that I only live once, and now was the time to do this. And then, I panicked. I turned around to my friends (about 30 of us) and muttered something incoherent, probably that I couldn't do it... And before I knew it, all of my friends were singing in unison...

"Don't worry about a thing, 'cause every little thing... Gonna be all right..." 

It was one of those life moments when everything comes together so sweetly, one of those moments you have to embrace head-on... Because you don't know when you'll have it again... The sun was shining, exotic birds were flying by, the waterfall was pounding crystal clear water, and I was surrounded by 30 great friends singing such divine words of encouragement - people with whom I had just shared a month of bonding, life-challenging, and soul-searching activities in another country.

So, a year later, I had those very words inked on my ankle...

Indeed, it was pretty painful... 

But my lovely lady friends treated me to ice cream at the beach right after... 

So, good story? I know tattoos can be kind of goofy or intense, but I think mine tells a story, perhaps why I love it so much!