Getting a tattoo had always been somewhere on my list, along with many other things I never quite got around to doing. Recently, I started to feel there was something quietly cool about taking a little control over my body, and leaving a small anchor in a time when so much is still taking shape.
The first words that came to mind were:
Be like water.
Water has no fixed shape. It flows, bends around things, and finds its way through without losing what it is.
I still had no idea what the tattoo should look like, so I messaged a tattoo artist on Instagram and tried to describe the feeling rather than the image: water, movement, becoming.
She somehow got it right away.
She sent me a small sketch made of a few fluid lines that could be mountains or waves.
No clear border, nothing too defined. It had a quiet Asian feel, like a few strokes from an ink wash painting, but there was something strong underneath them.
I knew immediately that I wanted it.
I loved the feeling of discovering something I hadn't known how to imagine myself. It felt less like I had designed a tattoo and more like I had encountered one.
And somehow, be like water had taken shape.
I started with a thought I couldn't quite put into words. Through a small and unexpected encounter, it became a few lines on my skin.
They don't tell me who I should become. They simply remind me that I can keep moving, keep changing, and still slowly take shape.
Like a wave. Like a mountain.
Maybe growing up is not about finding one final shape, but becoming comfortable with taking shape as you go.
