Yes, Sir, I'll Have Another

For some reason or another, I have always been fascinated with tattoos.  When I was growing up, I didn't see many of them and pretty much the only people that had them were military members or hard core bikers.  And I didn't spend much time around either group.  But, I wanted a tattoo from a young age.  As the years went on, my desire didn't go away, but I became a lot more cautious about getting one.  What I wanted years earlier were now out of the question, so I thought for a long time as to what should be on my body forever.  About nine years ago, I finally decided on my tattoo and I've never looked back.

I went to the tattoo shop, talked to the artist, discussed what I wanted, told her to do the design, and made an appointment.  I got my first tattoo--and it was something that was of great significance to me.  The design, to me, shows the connection that the Jewish and Christian faiths have--it is a very important spiritual symbol.  This was placed on the upper part of my lower, left arm.

After getting my first tattoo, I thought I was done.  Unfortunately, I was hooked.  For years, I thought about the possibility of getting some more tats.  Six years later, I decided to go back for another one--I knew what I wanted.  This time, I decided on the symbol for infinity--also, for me, it means 'forever' and 'eternity.'  I got this one near my right wrist.

A couple of months later, I went back and got tattoos number three and four.  The third one was placed on the back of my right hand, up from my thumb.  It signifies the ten year anniversary of the day I quit smoking.  I had it put where I could see it if I ever decided to smoke another cigarette--I usually held the cigarette in my right hand, in the day.  And tattoo number four was placed under the Star of David/cross tat.  It, too, holds a spiritual significance for me:  It is a Trinity knot, signifying the three-in-one, or the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Of all of my tattoos, the only one that isn't spiritual in nature is the third one:

And here is the last one that I got:

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about getting another tat.  I would really like to get something to do with the Red Wings, but I won't get red ink--if a person is going to have a bad reaction to ink, it probably will be red.  I'm kind of leaning toward something that involves the Greek letters alpha and omega--again, spiritual meaning--but it isn't as unique as some of my other tats.  Whatever I get next, I don't think it will be too long before it is done.