I got my first tattoo (preschool) spring break of 2009- “remain in my love”. It was a reminder of where to remain. Literally, in the midst of all the chaos and crazy of that season of life, I needed to abide, to remain in his love. 

October 2010 brought “restored”, it was a declaration not of what I thought I was, but what I was claiming to be. December 2011 brought awakened and a stepping into who I was and who I knew myself to be. 

March 2012 brought “love.” a present after my accident, a reminder that I was and will always be (ironically even before I knew that fact). 

And then April 2013, Brasov, Romania, brought “give me faith” (inside the infinity sign) as a reminder, while I was on a crazy whirlwind of an adventure, that everyday, continually for the rest of my life, I wanted more faith then I had the day before.
I almost got a tattoo in Spain. Words that were very much in my heart and still are. But it just didn’t settle. (And if anything in life has to settle it’s what you are getting tattooing on your body).

And so came “always”. Always is defined in Websters as: at all times, forever, in any event. 

I don’t when I started using the word as a sign off or as something that described all the things, but I took to using it as a stamp of mine. It said I love you, I got your back, I’m in your corner.

No matter what.
And it’s for when I needed to remember the truth in the fact that God’s promises and truths and lovely over my life weren’t just still true, they are always true. If when they don’t feel like it.

And lastly, but certainly not least a nod to one of my top three favorite lines ever written,

“after all this time?

—-Always.”
So, yesterday, at the end of what felt like too many long weeks in a row, I got off an hour and a half earlier from work then I normally do, bought a bottle of water, (because all I had done all day is double fist coffee) and I went and got always.

And man, just thinking about all the people with whom I share always makes me teary.

This tattoo is dedicate to you. 

To those from Kingsburg for whom I would seemingly move mountains. 

To those in Orange County who have stuck with me through my wandering.

To my RFK people who have caused me to feel more love at the times I didn’t even know I needed it. 

To my best friend, ALWAYS. 

To Melissa and our crazy friendship. 

To my family, because you are my family, always. 

To Katarina. 

To the Gorbett’s. 

To the fathers in my life who say “always” to me. 

To the class of six.

 To my tribe made of humans as near as down the street and soon to be as far as India made up of people who traveled the world with me and those who I met along the way.  

And of course, to the three women who got the first picture of this tattoo.

  
Always.