Too Free to Fly

On March, 27, 2013 I got my first tattoo in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

It was college senior year. For spring break, I flew to to that perfect city with two of my closest friends, Gabriella and Sarah. For seven days we danced the streets, took photographs, sipped coffee in charming cafes, moseyed around art museums, and drank wine until 4:00 am. This was my first time out of the country and I fell in love with the feeling only traveling to a new country can give you...freedom. I thought about this feeling most of the week and how I didn't want to lose it. Buenos Aires made me feel like a bird with endless opportunities to fly.

The day before our flight home, I convinced my friends to come with me to get my first tattoo. I wanted five birds on my rib cage. The five would represent my Mom, Step-Dad, Step-Brother, and Sister. This meaning still stands true. I vividly remember the tattoo artist inspecting my ribs and contemplating. He suggested I get six birds because the sixth would curve beautifully around my back, as if the flock were changing directions. I was sold immediately.

Exactly five months later on August 27, 2013; my Dad, took his own life.

Jeff was adventurous, unpredictable, intense, and social. He spent his days reading the newspaper while driving, hopping from job to job, buying and selling goods from strangers, and fighting with my Mom.

It was the very first week of my first job post-grad and my sister texted me the news after the school day was over. I taught middle school science at the time in a lower-income neighborhood of New Orleans. I don't remember much of that moment but feeling small, paralyzed, and mentally frozen in time. I couldn't pick up the phone, open my laptop to buy a plane ticket home, or even remember the last time I spoke to my Dad in that moment.

What I do remember is looking out of my window and staring at the birds. I thought about my Dad and how he lived so freely and non-traditionally. If he didn't like one job, he would hop to the next, even if it meant quitting and losing his income. He felt best on a bike, on the water, or in a boat. He needed to keep moving. He seemed so free. Little did I know, most of his adult life, anchors were weighing his wings down. I wondered how a man that appeared so free, could take his life in a second.

That evening, I prayed to God and dedicated the sixth bird that curves around my back leading the flock in another direction, to my Dad. There's nothing more meaningful than a tattoo that transforms meaning with the seasons of our lives. While my Dad's mental anchors weighed him down on Earth, I know he is flying free up there. Free as he'll ever be.

The following music video by Zac Brown Band, plays "Free", my Dad's favorite song.

When I got home from Argentina, I stumbled across this quote. I'm confident my Dad sent it to me.

“Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.”

I will spend the rest of my days making an incredibly large effort to stay afloat on top of my happiness. I won't let you down, Dad...even if you may or may not disapprove of my bird tattoo from up above. ;-)