Permanence is a topic I’ve considered quite a fair deal in the past, and even more so in the days and months surrounding my decision to get a tattoo.

Instead of feeling an unexpected dread after it sank in that my tattoo, my design, would be on my arm forever I felt a certain comfort. Comfort in having something positive be so permanent and inseparable from my being.

Another reminder of the lack of permanence we must endure in our lives is when friends must leave us, or when we must leave our friends… This is also something that has been playing on my mind. No, thankfully none of my friends or family have died recently, but a lot of the friends I made here have gone home – most of my friends in Ghent being exchange students such as myself. Worse still, I have to leave the friends that remain here, and the city itself which I love so much, in just a few weeks, to go to Germany to begin the next leg of my academic journey. Worst of all I will be many miles away from Julia.

And yet there is nothing I could do to stop these changes: Before I even arrived in Ghent last year, it was already decided that all these people would go home at this precise time and that I would have to go to Germany thereafter. Yet we learn to ignore these unpleasant inevitabilities as much as we can. One must simply believe that even seemingly negative changes in our lives, such as death and loss, may be necessary stepping stones to wisdom and positive future developments.

When people share with others that they have had a tattoo, or would like to get a tattoo, the overriding response tends to be one advising caution, further consideration, or the outright abortion of the plan – all this sagely advice based on the fact that tattoos are permanent. Of course it’s wise to think big decisions though, but I’ve come to understand that we make many decisions every day which can have a far more permanent effect than a tattoo can on our lives, without giving them any forethought whatsoever. The tattoo is simply a tangible realization of this truth. We all make good and bad decisions, and some of them will haunt us forever. It’s never easy to know which are the good or bad decisions until afterwards, when they leave their permanent marks.