current status

I remember when I first read these words, in medias res, in the middle of a now forgotten sentence, in a book by my favorite author.

I can't remember if I'd wanted words tattooed onto my body prior to reading the sentence, but it was an instantaneous desire to have them inscribed on me somewhere when I read those words.

In the middle of things. 

That's the literal translation, and it refers to a narrative writing technique. A way to set up a story with flair, it often occurs in the middle of the book, although it's an effective opener. There's drama and intensity, even if it's as simple as a glance into a moment passed, (as it was in this particular novel), and it's almost always significant.

It was almost a year later when it finally came to me to have the words tattooed onto my body. 

Chosen during the hardest month of my life, the month between my sister's birthday and death, at the time it was literal. I was spiraling and needed something to ground myself. At the time it was a way of acknowledging the shit storm that I was. 

I see now that these words are fluid, I am, (we are), always in the middle of things, because that's life. And if I'm not, than that's when it's time to be frightened.

I derive a lot of pleasure that its placement is in the middle of my holster/belt line adornment, and I'm all for a virtual fist bump to the irony that this tattoo, no. 13, is a tramp stamp.

Mine isn't the typical lower back tattoo and luckily, it doesn't look like one. Once the last bit of real estate is inked and my power belt is complete, those three words will likely be its harness and center point. Certainly a pivot point on my body, a distinct reminder and marker of before and after.