trust
Back in 2012, I picked the word *trust* for my One Little Word. It's the strongest OLW experience before or since. It carried me through the drama of wedding planning and the overwhelming emotions of getting married. It surfaced when I was feeling down or frustrated. It gave me permission to let go, to be present, to really sit with how things are, not rage against how I wish they could be different. It turned down my hustle and turned up alignment.It became a mantra. And it stayed with me.You should get a tattoo of "trust".Sometime in the spring I realized I'd been thinking about this tattoo for 2 years. That seemed like long enough for me. And after the shit start of 2015, I thought this year's OLW adventure could use a little boost in the form of my first tattoo.---I saw Daniel Winter's work on Instagram via Lisa Field. I figured out that I was looking for a single-needle style, which, according to this post, means I'm super on-trend right now. I wanted something hidden, but visible. Something readable, but none of those ridiculous fonts. Something reserved, but still, permanent ink. A thin black line. A word I could glance down and see when I needed a boost.Daniel texted almost immediately after I emailed. We had one quick phone call and picked a date 6 weeks later.June 24th H and I drove to a private tattoo studio behind an art store, parked next to a Suzuki bike, and shook hands with an intense, quiet guy covered in tattoos himself, of course.He had my idea pulled up in a few different fonts. I picked a bottom left example instantly, asked him to lower case the first t and called it done. He sized it down, advising not to go too small, and put the guide on my arm. I approved and we were good to go.The pain was bad and it wasn't. Daniel said it was like getting hit with hot cooking oil. Another friend warned it was like "serrated knives dragged across your skin". It was closer to the former. It hurt, but it wasn't close to other crap I dealt with health-wise. After you have your emotions gutted, you can be sure a single-needle won't do too much damage.The whole process took less than 45min. It healed like a beauty.---A friend who has many tattoos herself asked if the experience was therapeutic."No," I said. "I contemplated it for so long, it's like something snapped into place, like it's always been there, it's just now I can see it."Sort of how I feel when I trust things in general, so, there you go.---Read other posts where I write about *trust*