To tattoo or not to tattoo, that is the question

If I told my grandparents that I planned to get a tattoo, I would likely give them a heart attack in their old age. They come from a time where getting a tattoo meant permanently marking your body and was mainly reserved for those who had served in the military. However, with the rise in safe, effective laser tattoo removal, tattoos are not necessarily permanent any longer, which is both good and bad.

The ability to remove a tattoo is blessing for those who got a ill-advised tattoo when inebriated, or an ex-lover’s name tattooed pre-breakup, or a barbed wire tattooed on their bicep in a time when that was still cool. On the other hand, now that laser tattoo removal is readily available, tattoos are essentially only semi-permanent. For instance, though a lower back tattoo (also unjustly called a tramp stamp) may be cute for a 20-year-old woman in college, the cuteness factor may decrease by the time she is a mother of three. Affordable and safe laser tattoo removal means that you can now have a tattoo for a single period in your life or undo a bad decision.

My mother always told me that I had better really care about something to get it tattooed. Throughout relationships and friendships, joining a sorority, overcoming many challenges, and learning numerous life lessons, I have yet to care about something that much. Perhaps as I get older and see more of the world, I will begin to care about something enough to want to get a tattoo in commemoration. Then again, if regret set in, I could always get it removed.

Here is a link to a laser tattoo guide that gives more information on the process: Tattoo Removal Guide