A Little Ink on My Heart

            Yes, it’s true that some of the T2 tribe got tattoos.  It’s just a tiny little thing that would give us no cred in the real tat world, but it’s real.  People have mixed reactions.  Some are impressed; some are appalled.  More than once I’ve heard it referred to as “ridiculous.”

 

The T2 tat is getting a lot of attention, but did you know it’s not my only one?  Yep, I have other tats, too.  I have a chicken pox scar on my left temple from scratching a scab after my mom told me not to.  It’s a souvenir from my rebellious preschool days.  I have a permanent knot in the vein on my left hand from getting frost bitten at Girl Scout camp.  It’s a survival badge that can’t be removed.  I have stretch marks on my stomach from being pregnant four times.  They are precious tats that remind me how much I loved having each child in my belly, and how much I love being their mom.  My right big toe nail has an indention from where one of my boys cleated me.  I always smile when the pedicurist works diligently to try and smooth it out, but it won’t budge.  It’s a tat that represents how dangerous, but rewarding it is to mother boys, and why you should never wear sandles around boys in metal cleats.

            Those are the ones you can see, but there are a lot of tattoos on my heart that you can’t see, left there by special people and days that made their mark on me permanently.  I’m so glad for each one, even though sometimes ink on your heart hurts even more than ink on your ankle.

            I’m so thankful for the path my career has taken, even though it’s been tough at times.  I’ve spent more hours in planes and hotels than I want to ever count.  I’ve gotten rewarded, and I’ve gotten looked over.  I’ve been a front-runner, and I’ve come in so far back that it’s humiliating.  In the beginning, more often than not I was making it up as I went along. Ok, there are still days when I’m making it up.   Most importantly, I’ve gotten to know a lot of wonderful people through my 25 years out in the real world.  I’ve gotten to know a lot of jerks, too, and they have also taught me some great lessons.

            Eleven years ago I was invited to go on a journey with a group of people that I hardly knew at the time, but we grew to be what tribe member Rod Grozier calls our Mission Tribe.  We birthed a company together.  In the beginning it was a sweet baby that had to be fed and changed a lot, but was relatively easy to handle.  It went through its terrible twos when we all wondered what in the world we had created.  There were the easy years when we credited its success to our smarts and hard work.  There were the tough teenage years when it back-talked us and slammed doors in our face.  What a ride!

            When it was time to say goodbye to this (ad)venture, I did so with mixed feelings.  It made perfect sense on every level to sell, and I still get to do what I love to do with the people I love to do it with.  But saying goodbye to something you’ve invested so much of yourself in is never easy, even if it was a pain in the ass and it’s only moving next door. 

            Our tribe wanted to memorialize that time in our lives and what better way than with a little t2 tattoo.  I usually only remember it when I’m putting my socks on to go work out, but it gives me a smile every time.   That little tat represents the outrageous journey our tribe took together with little more than an idea and a credit card and a cool logo.  Some of the tribe have moved on to new adventures; some of us are still plugging along, but I know what we built will always exist.  Maybe with a different name and different team members, but it will live on.  And for as long as I live, that cool little logo will be tattooed on my ankle. 

Ridiculous?  You tell me.