Killing It In My Sixties

For over thirty years, I have wanted to get a tattoo. But every time I got close to plunging through my hesitation, something would always hold me back. So many thoughts intruded on my desire to customize my skin in a permanent way. Sometimes it was because of the man I was in a relationship with; back then – it still mattered to me what someone else thought, I cared too much and was ridiculously vulnerable about someone liking me and finding me attractive.

As the years went by, I would change my mind about where I would want the tattoo placed, and what the image would be. I know this about myself: I like change – some would say I thrive on it. Choosing an image to remain on my body for all time, scared me. I had considered a crescent moon with a ring of stars around my ankle initially. Then I heard that a tattoo close to a bony area would be very painful. So… no.

For a time I thought about a heart and an arrow, because I am a Sagittarius, (the archer) and well… Love. Then it seemed trite – like a Cupid type image. I briefly considered figure representative of a huntress – because my name means Roman goddess of the hunt. Diane also means shining one – hence the stars. Then I would play with images of all of them combined – some turned out looking pornographic, which was NOT what I was going for!

Then… last year my Dad died. It is said that a singular event can change you forever. His passing did that — deep to my very core. Three months after his last breath, I was at my grandson’s high school graduation and a young man took the stage to sing a song for the commencement ceremony. The hot clear afternoon was very still as his voice filled the football stadium with the words Frank Sinatra made famous, “My Way”. My throat swelled and I couldn’t hold my tears back – it was my Dad’s favorite song. He loved it and he sang it loudly and often in his lifetime.

Not only did he love the song – it was literally his anthem for life. He was a true Renaissance man; exploring every curiosity, traveling the world, writing books, building and flying airplanes, painting in watercolors, refurbishing a Criss Craft wooden boat, skiing – both snow and water, and loving the people he was grateful to have surround him throughout his days in this life. He truly lived and “Did It My, (HIS) Way”.

To say the last ten months have been hard is an understatement. My dad was the person I looked up to, depended on, laugh and cried with, and trusted more than anyone else. Having a life with him not in it, has been the most difficult truth I have ever had to accept. I will hold him in my heart forever – and I wanted some way to honor that love.

So… one morning a few weeks ago, I was relaxing in my bedroom and a song came on: Frank’s voice gave rise to a shiver in my spine and raised the hairs on my arm, “I Did It My Way”. “And now the end is near, and so I face the final curtain”, and “More, much more than this, I did it my way”, he sang and I heard my dad’s voice singing along with him. At that very moment – I knew what my tattoo would be. THIS – I could have forever with not a single regret.