Mental ramblings of a tattooed bride..

I have a great big fear that on my wedding day, I will walk down the aisle and everyone will ignore my bridal beauty and focus on the great big tattoo on my arm.  

I will admit this here, and only here, that for a while I was even considering covering it up to appease our wedding guests.  Luckily this isn’t something that has ever been suggested to me, I just let my overworking girl brain get the best of me.

It is so easy to get wrapped up in what is expected of you.  Or even worse, what you THINK is expected of you.  

I had an idea of the half sleeve that I wanted to get but it changed when Aaron lost his best friend to suicide. 

He was living with us at the time.  He had always struggled with depression but he seemed like he was doing okay.  After a few months he was starting to lose it, and we were nervous.  The night before he left, I looked at Aaron and said “we need to talk about this tomorrow because I’m getting worried.”  That was after he told Aaron he could have his guitar.  That was the last time we saw him.

After he hadn’t come home a day later I went in his room and found his suicide note.  It took the police all day to find him.  While Aaron became very sick, I obsessively cleaned the house hoping he’d walk through the front door.  The police came back that evening, and our lives were changed forever.

That day somehow fused me and Aaron together.  I think when you go through something so tragic, even only a few months in to our relationship, it defines whether or not you can make it through.

The tattoo on my arm is from the book he left me with.  I finished it right before I found his letter saying goodbye.

Is it somewhat strange that a chick would get a giant “ship of the dead” from a Stephen King novel tattooed on her arm?  TOTALLY! 

And while that doesn’t go along with what people’s vision of a normal bride is, it’s me.

I told Aaron last month that while I love all of our groomsmen; it’s hard for me to plan the wedding knowing that he was supposed to be up there with us.  I will always feel like he’s missing. 

I know that when I walk down the aisle he’s there, represented, in a better way than just his name in our program. 

Because a piece of him, a piece of everyone I've lost, is there with me, on my left arm.

And I'm gonna rock the shit out of it.

Normal work stuff.

I'm an apartment manager which comes with its own interesting set of perks and shortcomings. 

PRO:  Free rent and ALL utilites!
CON:  Dim-witted residents that think it’s a good time to ask you about Community Policies while you’re in your pajamas, bra-less, walking your dog, at 10 o’clock at night. 

My least favorite part of my job is doing an Annual Inspection.  Meaning we give a resident 24 hours notice that we’re gonna get all up in their apartment and make sure they’re not hoarders, that they don’t have mold, or a meth lab.

While I think some people would enjoy being in someone’s apartment for the temptation of snooping it makes me morbidly uncomfortable.

I say morbidly because whenever I go in to someone’s apartment 98% of the time I am terrified that I’m going to find a dead body. 

I’ve never been traumatized in any sort of “rotting corpse discovery” sort of way.  But I’m going blame the 13 some odd seasons of Law & Order SVU marathons that I get sucked in to. 

Once I’ve secured the apartment and double checked that there are no carcasses, my next overwhelming fear is that this otherwise normal appearing resident is going to throw a plastic bag over my head in a  “SURPRISE! I’m a psycho and you're dead!” serial killer moment.

So..

Other than that, the free rent is pretty good.