Top 5 Tattoos (on my "to get" list)

I am sort of feeling those vibes of rebellions that wash over me in waves every once in a while. I lead a pretty straight-laced life so when the pressure mounts I usually let loose. My poison of choice you ask? I either get completely trashed (once every 14 months) get another piercing (at once point I was up to 15!) or my favorite, pick up a new tattoo.

I have planned to save my debauchery filled drunken night for New Years Eve, have become a total wuss in the past couple months when it comes to needles and am hopelessly too broke for a tattoo- So I compiled a wish list (I wish I was cool enough to have a shoe wish list or purse one but I'm, sadly, completely satisfied with my one huge tote and live in converse for comfort and to keep my 5' 9" giant self out of the sky)

Here we go the Top 5 Tattoos

on my "To Get" list:

#5

The flag of the state of Arizona in the shape of a heart

No matter how much I fell like I am going to die from the excruciating heat in the summer, or the hate of being surrounded by the fake tans and fake boobs that is Snottsdale, or by the fear of being trapped here- it's home, and "home is where the heart is". No matter how far I go or where I end up- I'll remember and carry with me my Arizona roots. Born an Arizonan. Raised an Arizonan. Die an Arizonan.

#4

A Pin-Up Zombie Tattoo

yeah you heard read right! Now the question is "why the hell would you want that?" For me it would mean beauty in all shapes, sizes, forms (human or not) would mean power and intelligence over love (she would be holding a heart in one hand and eating the brain!) because I don't ever want to lose myself, my independence, or equality for a man or for love- as I've seen happen before. It would also have Beatrice's line from Much Ado About Nothing "O God! that I were a man! I would eat his heart out in the marketplace!"

#3

A Paleta

YES! A popsicle! but better! I want a Mexican popsicle, paleta, with green, white and red sprinkles to signify the mexican flag. Every year for vacation we would go down to Tijuana to visit family and the highlight of each trip was getting to walk down to the Paleteria, or ice cream shop, with my mom and sister down the street and pick up paletas in the flavors of mango, or strawberry, pineapple or coconut all made with fresh fruit and from milk. It's those summer days with just us girls in Mexico that really made me fall in love with the country and culture.

#2

Day of the Dead Sugar Skull, Virgen de Guadeloupe, and Loteria cards sleeve

I already have the sugar skull on my left arm and am waiting for pictures from a photo shoot I did for a friend to post about the tattoos I already have, but I want to continue it down to a 3/4 arm sleeve. On my inner arm I want the Virgrn de Guadeloupe done in a traditional American tattoo style:

as well as some loteria cards around my elbow and some flowers to finish off the whole thing.

My plan is to do the full sleeve of popular Mexican iconography but all done in traditional American tattoo style. It just fell like me.

#1

A portrait of my mom

There are beautiful pictures of my mom from the 70's and one painted portrait of her at age 14 that would all be perfect for this. A simple black and grey portrait of her on my right forearm with filigree is my # 1 most wanted tattoo. Of course she hates the idea and I look so much like her when she was my age so hopefully it doesn't end up looking like a self-portrait- but I can;t think of a better way to carry around the person who means the most to me in this world.

These were my top 5 and rest assured there are plenty more on my mind. What tattoo's are going to make their way onto your top 5 list or someday skin?

I kinda-sorta-really-totally love my mom (with all my heart)

And I have for umm… like ever. It’s odd growing up with the feeling deep down that no matter what my mom is IT for me best friend wise. I have a sister (two to be exact) and we have a special relationship, a cousin who has been like a built in bff for me and my sister, my greatest gal pal from high school, mis hermanas from ASU, an assortment of great girl power givers throughout the past couple years who have been really great friends to me- but no one compares to my mom.

It was weird for me to see my friends in high school having the strenuous relationship with their moms where they fought, just weren’t ‘understood’, and had what could be seen as a typical high school daughter-mom relationship. Love/hate, no? I had some of that with my mom but we could do anything together and did. We had HMDP together, and shared feeling, thoughts, emotions, and it was really like each day I wasn’t growing up alone; I had my mom there with me. My quincenera was ours, my prom was ours, and my graduation was ours. Basically nothing could conquer the love I had for that woman or our bond- nothing until I went to college.

I had to leave for school- had to move out and finally get to be me. I have older siblings who caused some mayhem growing up and I just wanted to make things smooth in my child-parent relationship so I behaved- but I suppressed myself along the way. Freshman year came and I was free. In the time I was rejoicing in my freedom of no curfews, no judgment, and acting in the way I saw fit, thinking the way I had wanted to think for so long I never realized I left part of me behind. I left my mom behind on my quest for me. I didn’t notice she was gone but she so acutely felt the pain when I left.

She’ll describe the feeling of me moving out to Tempe as a feeling that part of her had died. Emptiness she couldn’t fathom and pain she never imagined. It’s a time I don’t like to think about because I know I made her feel that way she by shutting her out of what I was up to in my quest for me was what I wanted. I never did anything illegal, or bad or really had nothing to hide but when I had lived at home I had acted in the way a daughter should; I never gave my parents trouble, got good grades, and when college time came I saw it as the point where the Marisela that was acceptable to my parents and family was gone and I was going to be the Marisela I truly wanted to be. The part of me that had waited for me to move out now had free reign to be, I was just not going to let my mom in on the new me.

Long story short, with main emphasis on the interesting summer I had, I was back home and ready to be bff’s with my mom again. I had doubted her all these years of being a too traditional and closed-minded catholic immigrant from Mexico to see that no matter what I did she would love me unconditionally. She would love me not for being the daughter that was expected or appreciated but me, free- thinking, tattooed, pierced, and flawed me. I was resentful of the time I spent trying to be the ‘right kind’ of daughter they wanted but she was never mad at me for leaving or cutting her out. I can tell you know that we love each other now more than ever before and I’m sure codependency isn’t good but with her I have no problem with it.

I’m new to writing about myself and blogging and I know it’s hard to read/understand, and I sure do feel like I haven’t expressed myself well and this post is not organized nicely and sort of out of the blue but…

Today she wasn’t home when I got here. I waited and texted “I love you! Where are you?” I come to my phone hours later to see my really-not-so-technology-savvy mom had text me back “estoy con lala (I’m with lala (my grandma)) I love you too”

And it just hit me that she really does love me too…not the daughter who doesn’t sneak out, or go to parties, or have boyfriends she doesn’t like, (which I don’t do any of that- confusing writing? Yeah I think so) but me the daughter who has ‘grandma hobbies’, a potty mouth, too many points of interest, too many started projects and no finished ones. The daughter that bakes too many cookies, never cleans up messes, has clothes all over the floor, the one that laughs too hard, tries too hard not to cry. She loves the daughter that loves her mom more than she thought she could, more then she probably should, more than the sun, the moon, the birds in the sky, the water in the sea…

I just do…I love her…I do.