Garbage Sale Mama

Garbage (intentional spelling) sale time is here! I hit my first of the season last week on our way to storytime. Initially, I stopped because I saw a red wagon that looked indispensable, but it was overpriced. This cute Radio Flyer bike came home with us instead. For $5 (a $50 value!!) it could not be passed it up. Hudson looks like a giant on it, but loves the annoying bell. I considered having a sale of my own this spring, but now am thinking not. Taking items to Goodwill has just been easier. I don’t really get rid of anything unless it no longer fits me or fits where I am in life. And that is not too much stuff these days.

Unless we are talking about my tattoo. I was having a discussion today with my daughter Mariya about tattoos. During our Skype session I caught a glimpse of hers. (Breathe deeply now for it is a bird for Pete’s sake on her neck just above her cute bobbed hairline. I know. I know. Did I not teach her anything?!?!) My violent shrieking reaction (measurable on a Richter scale and yet, I am confident, only one-fifth of my mother’s own reaction when she saw mine) generated a needed conversation (albeit belated) about them. I was aghast at her decision and quickly sheepish when I realized that I too was 19 (her age) when I felt like a tattoo “fit” my life.

There was significant meaning to my choice of a permanent ink marking. Unlike Josh’s firm belief that the Chinese symbol on my ankle indicates “Value Meal Number 5”, it indeed means “strength." At nineteen, I felt that nothing would prepare me for the potential of medically necessary needles like getting stabbed with multiple ones several times a second. Well… in reality, I truly no longer fear needles, but I don’t know if the tattoo was the catalyst.
The irony of how my life has turned out should not escape anyone. Who would have guessed seventeen years ago that I would have gestational diabetes, not once but twice. (Yes, I failed my recent test.) And that I would not only have medically necessary tests that require four blood draws in a single morning, but that I would be taking my own blood four times a day for months? I sure didn’t need a tattoo to learn to deal with needles. And I didn’t need God’s good-natured joke of giving me GD twice, but that is just how it worked out.

*Sigh* I am no longer the person I was at 19, but unlike piles of ill-fitting clothes, you can’t sell a tattoo at a garage sale.

Remember that, kids!