I'm a canvas.

Go big, or go home.

This has always and will always be my motto. At the ripe age of sixteen I convinced my sweet, naïve, easily-persuaded mother that I should get my lip pierced. Though she is an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, she somehow knew that if she didn’t sign the parental consent form at the local piercing shop, I would do it myself with a safety pin as she had seen so many times in my ears. Being a smart woman, she knew the risk of infection would be much worse if I didn’t go somewhere to have it professionally done. Little did she know that this was only the beginning.

Unfortunately for my mother, the next summer I was travelling Europe with a group from my high school. During my stay in Amsterdam, I decided to get my lip pierced again. Luckily for me you only have to be sixteen years old to make adult decisions in Amsterdam. It was a little disconcerting though that I seemed to know the proper piercing procedures a bit better than “Yahn”. For example, the fact that he used externally threaded jewelry (the ball screws onto the bar instead of into the bar as with internally threaded jewelry), and the fact that he pierced my lip from the outside in. You are supposed to pierce from the inside out because then you go through all the soft tissue first and only have to puncture the tough skin once, whereas if you pierce from the outside in you have to push into and against the skin the entire time, making the piercing more painful. This event stays with me because I still have the piercing in my lip, even though it was obviously poorly done and even in the wrong spot. I realistically should go get it re-pierced but to be honest, I just don’t care that much. Way to go, Yahn.

“At least it wasn’t a tattoo,” my mother stated. A week after my eighteenth birthday I decided it was time for me to get a tattoo. I went to a friend who was working out of his basement because he was in between shops. I made sure that all of his equipment had been autoclaved, which is a sterilization process to ensure that blood-borne pathogens such as hepatitis aren’t transferred between clients, and everything was sanitary. After a long and painful session, I came home and encountered my mother sitting on the couch. I figured she might as well know, so I told her I got a tattoo. She asked what it was and nearly screamed as I proceeded to lift up my shirt to reveal my plastic wrapped and newly tattooed side- yes, entire left side of my torso. It was of my favorite flowers, lilies, and started at my hip bone. It ends about two inches from my armpit. She was a little upset at how large it was (go big or go home, see) but exclaimed, “at least it’s pretty.”

This tattoo led to a memorial tattoo on my back for my best friend who had passed away when I was fifteen. It is also a quite large piece covering most of my upper back. These led to another large piece on my right side, a dinky little best friend peace sign tattoo on my ankle (which really shouldn’t count as a tattoo at all), and a cross on my left shoulder. All of these are meaningful to me and have a reason behind them, unlike a lot of individuals with numerous tattoos. I have plans for many more including both my feet, my other ankle, behind my ears, a collar bone, a half sleeve, and my wrists.

I currently have five tattoos, two piercings in my lower lip, two in my nose, thirteen in various parts of my ears in addition to earlobes gauged to 7/16”. I also currently hold a position as Regional Manager of eight silver shops in malls across the Salt Lake valley. I thought it out enough that I can cover up my tattoos if I’m wearing anything more than a bathing suit (which I am, the majority of the time), and if necessary I can remove my jewelry. Thus far my piercings and tattoos have not held me back from succeeding in my current job, though they have given many people the “wrong idea” about me. They make for interesting meetings of adults-especially parents of friends, and an awkward, scary discussion with my father and the rest of my family. Though I have been called several unflattering names, and many people have wrongly judged me, I would not change one of my piercings or tattoos. I am an intelligent young woman, with great work ethic and creative ideas. At some point I may tire of my piercings and take out my jewelry but my tattoos will always be there. So instead of boring the grandchildren with my life story told as a scholarly thesis with too small print, hundreds of pages and no space to breathe, I can tell and then show them parts of my life. And really, who doesn’t like a good picture book?