L

ate last Saturday morn-
ing, I went to a garage 
sale with my best friend/

sister-in-
law, Caitlin. 
(We 
were 

best friends 
before 
she 

fell in love 
with, 
mar-

ried and had 
a baby with 
my 
year-

younger 
brother). 
They 
were 

renovating and trying to move 
into our childhood home.

Caitlin was interested in a 

black, older but good condition 
table/shelf combo. After seeing 
it first, then walking around 
the small, unappealing garage 
sale, we returned to the furni-
ture set, and she bought it for 
$10. A plastic, 1986 Bud Light 
mug with a bull terrier mascot 
was added to the purchase for 
my brother because it was kind 
 

of comical.

The older man hosting the 

garage sale was insistent on 
helping load the furniture into 
the back of Caitlin’s seven-pas-
senger Yukon. He was taking 
a break from strategizing on 
how to fit both pieces when he 
noticed my tattoos half covered 
by my t-shirt sleeve.

Reaching his hand toward 

the top of my arm, the man 
acted as if he was going to 
lift my shirtsleeve up. He 
motioned for me to show him 
the rest of my tattoos, without 
a word about whether or not I 
 

appreciated his curiosity.

A globe, four-inches in diam-

eter, covers most of the front, 
top part of my arm. It’s slightly 
old-fashioned 
with 
longitude 

and latitude lines filling the 
blank 
oceans. 
There’s 
some 

shading around the globe, with 

the phrase “We need not wait 
to see what others do.” stag-
gered in two lines beneath it, in 
a straight-lettered, all-capital 
type of font.

It’s a Gandhi quote. Look it up.
Where the word “DO” ends, 

a separate, older tattoo begins, 
running parallel to my bicep. 
Two words, 12 letters, “keep 
swimming” is etched in a type-
writer-like font from the middle 
of my bicep to three inches away 
from the top of my shoulder.

I’ve always received interest-

ing but cliché remarks about my 
thoroughly simplistic tattoo. In 
the two years that I’ve had it, the 
comments I receive usually seem 
to fall into one of four categories:

1) General, nice pleasantries: 

“I like your tattoo.”

Thank you for being kind 
 

and respectful.

2) 
Something 
involv-

ing swimming: “Are you on 
 

the swim team?”

Do I really look like I’m on the 

swim team?

3) Finding Nemo themed: 

“Doesn’t 
Dory 
say 
that 
in 
 

‘Finding Nemo’?”

Yes she does, but that doesn’t 

necessarily mean I got a tattoo 
inspired by the movie.

4) And the worst of all — an 

exclusively personal remark: “So 
what’s the real meaning behind 
your tattoo?”

I 
can 
barely 
tell 
my 

best 
friends 
the 
meaning, 

and I’m supposed to tell a 
 

complete stranger?

Now, I’ve added another tat-

too that’s at least five-times 
the size of my original inqui-
ry-maker. Since mid-May, the 
number of times people have 
asked me to lift my shirtsleeve 
to show them the rest of my tat-
toos is innumerable.

A few weeks ago, I was on my 

way home from the Matthaei 
Botanical Gardens with three 

friends when we started discuss-
ing tattoos. I made a comment 
about how I really don’t like 
attention being drawn to mine, 
and one of my friends made an 
interesting remark: “Isn’t that 
what they are for?”

Nearly 
having 
a 
quarter-

sleeve on your upper-right arm 
isn’t really discrete. Whenever 
it’s hotter than 60 degrees out, 
the public catches a glimpse of 
my permanent artwork. I can’t 
be completely rude to random 
strangers for their annoying 
but innocent curiosity about my 
obvious tattoos.

Sure, there’s no need to be 

rude, but those interested in 
others’ tattoos need to be more 
mindful as well. I didn’t spend 
hundreds of dollars that I earned 
to have someone permanently 
put ink into my skin for anybody, 
but me.

After all, it’s me that wakes 

up to the daily reminders on 
my arm, visible in my sightline 
whenever there’s no clothing 
covering it. It’s me who has to 
endure the endless comments 
and jokes about things that are 
deeply meaningful to my life. 
It’s me who wears longer sleeves 
to larger social functions just to 
avoid seemingly critical eyes.

Listening to incessant com-

ments and enduring endless 
staring makes me feel insecure 
about my tattoos, like the words, 
phrases and pictures I’ve decided 
to indelibly mark on my body are 
stupid, worthless or ignorant.

My body is mine, and mine 

alone. I appreciate when people 
admire the tattoos I hold dear 
to my heart, and I honestly 
don’t need validation for my 
decisions. But sometimes, it’d 
be nice if people just kept their 
comments to themselves.

— Aarica Marsh can be reached 

at aaricama@umich.edu.

5

Thursday, June 25 2015

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com OPINION

Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor and 

viewpoints. Letters should be fewer than 300 words while 

viewpoints should be 550-850 words. Send the writer’s full 

name and University affiliation to melikaye@umich.edu

gram, that when I posted some-
thing, I wasn’t posting photos 
because I was excited to share 
something 
in 

my life, or for 
my own enjoy-
ment. 
Rather, 

I was posting 
photos for the 
followers 
that 

I had. “Likes” 
began to carry 
too 
much 

weight for me 
to 
be 
com-

fortable 
with. 

That’s when I 
knew it was time for a change.

Going off of Instagram isn’t a 

solution for everyone, of course, 
but I do think it’s time that we 
step back and take a moment to 
think about why we are on Insta-
gram and Facebook. Who are we 
on there for? I believe the only 
way that Instagram and Face-
book can stay enjoyable, and not 
become places of competition and 
anxiety, is if we are posting for 

ourselves, because we are excited 
to share our graduation or the 
birth of our child, and we aren’t 

worried about 
approval 
from 
oth-

ers 
through 

“likes.” 
It’s 

time we talk 
ourselves 
down 
from 

the 
place 

where “likes” 
are 
indica-

tive 
of 
the 

people in our 
lives who like 

us. Since Instagram and Face-
book are not going away anytime 
soon, it’s important we remember 
that our value isn’t the number 
of “likes” we have on our profile 
pictures or the number of Insta-
gram followers we have. We are 
all worth so much more than our 
online profiles.

— Anna Polumbo-Levy can be 
reached at annapl@umich.edu.

“Likes” began 

to carry too much 

weight for me to be 

comfortable with.

My tattoos are for me

AARICA 
MARSH

 

— University President Mark Schlissel in his response to the 

survey results from the University’s Campus Climate Survey 
 

on Sexual Misconduct.

“

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

We are adding a staff 
to help us develop and 

deliver the best pos-
sible prevention and 

education programs, to 

speed up sexual mis-
conduct investigations 

and to help counsel 

and support survivors.”
INTERESTED IN CAMPUS ISSUES? POLITICS? 

NEED A BREAK FROM THE SUN?

