My two favorite tattoos I’ve seen are one of a winged pixie perched on the lower back of a sweet, sexy female friend and several lines of a poem written in bold typeface on the forearm of a former foreboding colleague of mine. Both were great because they exuded the personality of the individuals wearing them.

The one young friend was playful and booty-proud so a nymph near her butt was a perfect pick on a perfect place. The dark angel co-worker was always pensive and artistic so thoughtful poetic words on the wrist did the trick to express creatively the heartbreak she wore on her sleeve.

I’ve dated folks with pierced navels and an assortment of Chinese character tattoos too. More trendy adornment than deep personal expression but going to any pains to alter appearance does say something about the depth of one’s shallowness. It offers permanence in an otherwise superficial and transitory existence. (Yeah, I’m bitter a bit!)

On a Canadian program produced by Global TV hosted by Toni Braxton called Vanity Insanity, I watched a pierced and tattooed guy do a New Age modern-day primitive suspension ritual hanging from the ceiling by metal hooks piercing his back.

He said each painful experience was a progression in discovering true self by testing the limits of endurance during physical as well as mental challenges. I understood but I wasn’t entirely sure if life doesn’t offer enough trials without adding further literal pain to understand one’s strengths and limitations.

Maybe, I say that because I broke my pelvis last year and remember what severe pain (often compared to childbirth) feels like without reliving it. However, with body modification what scares me isn’t the pain but permanence. Maybe it’s me not my dates with commitment issues?

After all, my pelvis healed and seldom hurts but the hole in my left ear has never grown in even after not wearing an earring in over a decade. What’s my life lesson? Even if the woman working the kiosk at the mall wears a white lab coat, it doesn’t mean she’s a trained clinician that knows for sure that if you change your mind later, it’ll just grow back anyway.