Yesterday I go my first tattoo and I could not be more stoked.
After long deliberation and having friends write it different ways for me, I picked the writting I liked the most and just bit the bullet.
Some people may say that getting “Love” tattooed on your arm is cliché or so “basic”. Well here is why I chose to write love on my arm.
Love is more than an emotion. It is more than telling someone you love them before leaving or hanging up the phone.
Love is and action and a choice.
Love is the foundation of everything that I believe in.
I have lived the majority of my 23 years believing that I was not worthy of love and that I had no love to offer. I could only offer a sarcastic comment in order to cover up my insecurities. I grew up not understanding what it really meant to love. My father always provided for the family financially and otherwise, but was emotionally distant. My mom tried to over-compensate by being a people pleaser and make us all happy, but that isn’t the definition of love either.
With this upbringing it was very easy to develop a hardened heart, and that is exactly what happened. Through my teenage years I rebelled like most kids and stopped talking to my parents and just gave the cool kid head nod saying “What’s up” when I walked through the door on my way to my room. With that rebellion also came a bout of depression that led to thoughts of suicide and ultimately a sex addiction. I came out of that depression by the grace of God and those around me and am still working on the addiction part, but taking it one day at a time in my recovery.
For the first time in my life, at the age of 18 I realized what it was to be loved.
I had a friend I thought I was going to loose. I thought, like so many time before, I had messed up beyond repair, and they would just walk out on me. But she didn’t.
It clicked. People had been loving me all along, I just didn’t see it because I was too busy trying to shut them out. Once I started letting people into my story, my whole world changed. I started being honest with myself and a handful of people around me. Slowly but surely I started letting people into my life. I let them love me and show me they loved me and I did my best to do so in return.
Over the past five years I have made it my mission to show love in any possible way to those around me. Simply because if there is one thing I have learned it is this:
I was created for a purpose. The vast majority of that purpose is to love and be loved by those around me.
To value people.
To show them they are important.
To show them they have a story that is meant to be lived out.
To live my life authentically so that I can be living proof to others that it does get better.
To love my family.
To love my friends.
To love strangers I meet in the Starbucks line.
To simply be myself and love who I am.
Don’t get me wrong, I have stumbled a lot along the way. I am still stumbling today. I am a much healthier me though. I am recovering day by day. The biggest change in me is that I choose to live with love in my heart and in my actions. I still throw in the occasional sarcastic comment here and there, but it’s not all I do now. I choose to live love and speak love.
This is why love is written on my arm.
Side Note: I grew up in Germany and hold that beautiful place near to my heart, which is why the language I chose is German.
Peace
I Will Fight For Love 