When I was 10 years old, my 20-year-old sister Dani came home from UW one weekend to do her laundry and gather some food. Since I only saw her about once a month, I followed her around those first few hours watching her every move and updating her on my very busy life as a fifth-grader.

I remember standing in the doorway to the laundry room as she was loading her dirty clothes into the washer, telling her about my most recent crush. And there it was — a tattoo of a moon and a star on her lower-right back. Her shirt rode up and revealed it as she bent down to pick up the last of her load.

I stopped describing the way Ryan’s hair hung over his eyes like Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic and just stared. I was mesmerized. I’d seen women with tattoos before, even my grandfather had one on his left forearm, but this was different. Dani didn’t get tattoos. We weren’t a tattoo family.

Raised in a household where we weren’t allowed to watch Nickelodeon, I was surprised by Dani’s actions of apparent rebellion. She was supposed to be “perfect.” She’d gone to Catholic school from kindergarten through ninth grade, and she graduated high school at the top of her class. Until that moment, I thought tattoos were reserved for people who were rough around the edges. I hadn’t even considered the possibility of my normal, perfect older sister getting a tattoo. When she stood up, her shirt covered her stamp of rebellion and she left the room, oblivious that I had discovered her imperfection.

From that moment on, I started to see tattoos differently. I no longer saw them as a marker of low-class character, but as a representation of individuality. And as I grew older, I found beauty in the unique. I found beauty, too, in tattoos. Each one different in shape, each holding a different meaning.

As I sit here now, two of my five tattoos are visible in my peripheral vision. Each one is important to me, a representation of who I am. Sure, I could just represent myself through my clothes, my music or my choice of friends, but it’s not the same. Going through the physical pain and commitment for each tattoo brings me closer to myself. It’s like a security blanket. Underneath layers of clothing, I know they’re still there. They always will be, continually reminding me of who I was at different points in my life. People may not fully understand why I do it, but they don’t need to. I’m not doing it for them. I’m doing it for myself.

Reach design chief Colleen Kirsten at design@dailyuw.com.