I have a tattoo on my wrist. My mother thinks it is ::so:: trashy. I can't wait to get more tattoos in little secret spots on my body. I love thinking of myself as a canvas I can so carefully and permanently decorate to commemorate events of my life I never want to forget.

The tattoo on my wrist means fortunate. I got is as a constant reminder of how blessed I am, even in my darkest moments. Of course, my mother doesn't understand that and she did nothing but express how deeply disappointed she was that I got the tattoo and then proceeded to stop speaking to me for about a month. It was great. Anyway, I digress....After I had my daughter, nearly 2 years ago, I was awash in dark thoughts, hallucinations, and uncontrolled emotions. I had postpartum depression badly. I could swear I saw 'little people' (like garden gnomes or something) darting around in my home out of the corner of my eye and I thought I was the worst mother. I loathed myself and what I had become.....a mother. With 2 children, it was impossible for me to go on pretending to be care-free and childless, like I often did to escape, mentally, after having my son. Turns out, I had undiagnosed and untreated PPD after my son was born in 2005 which then snow-balled after I had my daughter in 2007. Seems that as much as I enjoyed being pregnant both times, my depression started while I was carrying my son and continued for more than 2 years.

At any rate, I'm on medication now and will be for a while yet. After we're all through having babies, I'm sure I'll come off and be 'normal' or whatever that means for me. But on my darkest days, I couldn't remember or somehow lost sight of the fact that I was enormously blessed to have such perfect little people in my life. My depression fog was so thick I didn't see them anymore, I didn't even want to. I wonder how much I missed of them while I was sick?

So today, for no big reason in particular, I'm feeling blessed and remembering why I have this tattoo on my wrist. It keeps me in line. It is up front and prominent on my body as a message to myself to snap out of it and realize how fortunate I really am. This tattoo helps me believe it instead of just knowing it.

Looking at these two today, it is easy to believe that message with all my heart and soul.