on tattoos and perpetual imperamenance
reflections on adventure time, the future, and instincts
In the past four years, I’ve confidently made up my mind about what my first tattoo would be: the bee from the Adventure Time endscreen.
People often ask me the reason behind the specific tattoo I’ve decided on. Adventure Time was the first TV show that my sibling ever fell in love with. They could tell you the name of every single episode and bring up minute details from specific scenes that causal viewers would never have noticed at first glance.
My relationship with my sibling hasn’t always been smooth. We have had our fair share of strenuous periods and rifts, mostly caused by our parents attempting to pit us against one another. But over the later years of high school, my sibling and I grew close through watching TV shows together.
Every Friday and Saturday night during the school season, we would gather in front of the TV with a bowl of freshly popped buttered popcorn and watch episodes of whatever show we were going through. I introduced my sibling to countless iconic sitcoms like Silicon Valley, Community, and Arrested Development. In return, they showed me animated shows like Infinity Train, Gravity Falls, and, most importantly, Adventure Time.
But even before we started bonding through watching TV together, Adventure Time had always been a recurring way we bonded. Though I didn’t know much about the show, I always loved listening to my sibling ramble about fun facts in the show’s lore. One of the first songs I learned to play on the ukulele was the “Come Along with Me” song that plays at the end screen of Adventure Time. I distinctly remember playing the tune and my sibling’s face lighting up with recognition.
The question of whether or not I’d get this tattoo to honor my relationship with my sibling isn’t even a dilemma for me, as I’ve already made up my mind for years. I know what tattoo I want, how big I want it to be, and where I want it. So why haven’t I gotten it yet?
Ignoring the main barrier that my immigrant parents would freak out if they found out, I have the means to get one tomorrow if I wanted to. I could walk into any of the several tattoo places around my college and get it done within an hour.
You're partially right if you’re thinking, “The obvious answer is that Sam is deathly afraid of commitment!”. In this case, it’s not the commitment keeping me from following through but rather something I call “perpetual impermanence.”
There’s no way to say this that doesn’t sound dark, but I couldn’t imagine a future for myself when I was younger. Frequently, this came from a place of the pain of struggling with being closeted. At the age of 13, I wondered if I would even be able to survive until the start of high school. At 14, after three months of 9th grade, I started counting the days until graduation and until I turned 18 years old to see how many more days I had to endure to reach a seemingly impossible goal at the time. Perpetual impermanence is a phrase that aptly captures the feeling of very limited time combined with a sense of constantly expecting that nothing I do will matter.
As I progress through my 20s, I keep astonishing myself with each new number I reach, and each day serves as a reminder of my survival and resilience rather than a pesky barrier to reaching an end goal that didn’t account for a future. Sometimes, I find myself still acting out of the assumption that I won’t live past the end of the year. I remain prone to bouts of impulsiveness, whether it comes to expensive purchases or running away to somewhere by myself. It doesn’t help that I have an ever-fluctuating sense of self and place thanks to constantly traveling between home and college, separated by hundreds of miles. It’s hard to unlearn the instinct to assume the world is out to get me, even now that I feel more loved and permanent in this world. I don’t have to know my place in the world to know this; I just need to remember that a place for me in this world exists.
Maybe the phrase “perpetual impermanence” is misleading because it implies I believe nothing lasts forever. In reality, I use this phrase to describe that I believe the only thing that won’t last forever is me and, by extension, my body. Following that logic, how could I have something so permanent and beautiful on my body if my body won’t last past an upcoming expiration date?
Perpetual impermanence is difficult to unlearn, so I’m taking baby steps to figure out how to readjust my sense of self to a mode conducive to thriving rather than bare survival. Nowadays, I’ve been practicing avoiding asking myself this question and instead asking myself what I’m doing to make myself happy.
I’m excited about getting my first tattoo. I still have no clue when I’ll get it, but my determination is enough to reassure me that it will happen. Not only will it be a great way to commemorate my relationship with my sibling, but it will also function as a badge of honor, proving that I survived when I truly believed that I wouldn’t be able to make it. Maybe getting permanent ink on my skin will finally help me realize that impermanence isn’t so perpetual after all.
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