Shalom beautiful, awesome peeps!

I know my last two stories were heavy, so for July, I thought we’d switch it up and discuss some lighter topics— also in celebration of my favorite season, summaaaa! Summer is just the sexiest season, don’t you think? Everyone’s all nekkie, sweaty, and sun-kissed. Ideally.

This story was inspired by my time learning how to surf. I recently began a youth mentoring volunteer program, where I instruct “inner city youth” (just teens from LA) how to surf, even though I have no idea myself— they teach us. It’s been extremely fun and healing spending every Sunday all day out in the ocean with my mentee Marianna, getting smashed around, and occasionally drowning from the crazy waves. To prove it, I’ve got some wild cuts and bruises.

My time spent at Dockweiler Beach made me think about my divine connection with the ocean and marine life: sea turtles, mermaids, and the like. I even have a baby sea turtle and mermaid tattooed on me, which made me recall the first time I began communicating with the Universe through— signs.

Additionally, this story also came about through a lovely request: Damaris, a subscriber, emailed me asking to write a story about my journey to getting tattoos!

Thus, I present to you: the story of signs, synchronicities, and my pursuit of authenticity via my tattoo sleeve.

Please, please, please [Sabrina Carpenter angelic voice] email me, I’m dying to hear from you, motherfucker 😘 

Mucho luv & hugs,
Amy

Word count: 5,447
Pages: 8

Sea Turtles by Amy Lee

I am a sea turtle.

A few years ago, when I began diving deeper into my spirituality, I read a Gabby Bernstein book where she talked about the importance of signs and how the Universe or God is always talking to us— if we so allow it and tune into that channel. 

I’ll be honest with you, at this time, there wasn’t a greater skeptic than I. So codependently attached to my logical mind, I could out-think and over-think why anything, especially this sign mumbo jumbo, was… well, mumbo jumbo. But for each ounce of me that was skeptical, there has always been an ounce— or more— that has been intrinsically tied to a child-like sense of wonder and belief in magic. From a young age, I so desperately hoped and longed for a world in which fairies and mermaids existed, and believed magic was always around us. 

I was also secretly awaiting the day that Hagrid would show up and come knocking down my front door to tell me that “yer a wizard, Amy!”

So as a 25-year-old adult, when this idea was introduced to me, both the skeptic and the bruja (witch in Spanish) in me decided to test this. Could it be true? Could I, along with everyone else, have a magical little open communication channel with the Universe? Eh. We’re here anyways— What have we got to lose?

Gabby Bernstein said the first step was to just pick a sign: Don’t think about it. Just let it come to you. Let it be intuitive. She mentioned that hers was an owl.

I closed my eyes and my mind flashed a black screen, like a television turning off.

Boom. An image of a turtle appeared on the blank screen. Another flash. The turtle then morphed. Into a sea turtle, floating, with scales and all.

She said next to ask the Universe for a sign about a specific circumstance. Then, almost counterintuitively, to forget about the request altogether— just let it go. She said that when you’re in waiting or anticipation mode, you create resistance. 

I believe I learned from Abraham-Hicks, another spiritual guru, that similar to ordering a meal at a restaurant, you don’t keep asking the waiter when your meal is going to come. You put in your order and then forget about it. You just trust that it will.

And if you keep asking your waiter for the meal, it can create literal resistance, like a waiter possibly spitting in your meal or pissing off the chef to further delays. Additionally, you cannot will  into existence your sign— otherwise, it’s not an actual sign. Instead, you will know it’s a sign when your body reacts authentically and intuitively, like goosebumps, full body chills, or a sudden feeling of wonder, surprise, or amazement. Lastly, you forget about it because God or the Universe will answer you on its own time, in divine timing.

I put down my book and sat on my mattress and thought about what circumstance in my life needed assistance, currently. Easy. In a few weeks, my 3-month waiting period for my next tattoo appointment was coming to a close. As the days drew closer and closer, I became more and more anxious and told myself, you can always lose the deposit and back out: This tattoo appointment was the first appointment where I’d officially begin my tattoo sleeve.

There would be no going back after this.

As a little kid, finding access to any Sharpie permanent marker anywhere near me, I frequently drew fake tattoos on my body, despite warnings of getting cancer by my shouting mother. When I was 10, my parents took me to the Venice Beach Boardwalk for the first time and it was there that my mom let me get my first “tattoo”— a Henna tattoo of a small butterfly on my ankle. I was absolutely euphoric. A couple of years later, when I first discovered a free trial of Corel PaintShop Pro, I bought temporary tattoo printing kits from Staples and started designing little text sayings to stamp my wrists with:

“Beautiful 1963,” in an ostentatious, traditional cursive font, it read. Beautiful is something my mom often addressed me as, a young girl. 

“Good morning, Beautiful!” 

“How are you doing, Beautiful!” 

“What’s for dinner, Beautiful?” She would chirp. I’m not sure when it exactly stopped, but I always loved it. 1963 was her birth year.

Eventually, when the tattoo would fade away though, I would be left bereft, with my sad, naked bare arms.

As a teenager, when I saw feminine girls covered in tattoos, or just anyone in tattoos, for that matter, I would stare at them in awe. I was surely being blessed by the presence of goddesses. “She looks sick!” I looked up to them, in pure envy, and in an envy that would never fade. 

So when I turned 19, my second year in college, finally being of legal age and having made my own money for the last four years, I asked my parents if it would be okay to get one tattoo, even though I technically never needed any permission. 

I just didn’t want to hide anything. To my surprise, they were both okay with it. But it was under one condition. Just get one. And then stop. One is cute. And nice, they said. One to just scratch my itch, they said. 

My dad did try to minimally protest by asking, “Why can’t you get a cute belly button piercing instead?” 

Gross! I immediately thought. So not my vibe.

But anyone with tattoos knows the first one is more like breaking the pressure valve. Nobody has just one tattoo. And if you do, kudos to you, (weirdo)!

Together, with one of my best friends, I drove over to a small mom-and-pop tattoo shop in Silver Lake on Sunset Blvd. and inspired by the thin geometric tattoos that were popularized by Dr. Woo’s signature style, I paid $40 in cash to get a 4” geometric arrow tattoo on my inner left arm. 

The design starts with a large circle to represent the cycle of life with two baby arrows and two lines pointing outwards from it, to symbolize how life may begin with your parents guiding you, but ultimately there is more than one path in life and therefore, the design shoots into another small circle (life). The last and final arrow, the third, represents me, for I am the last and final one, ultimately guiding my life. Stylistically speaking, the large circle was tattooed quite imperfectly and a bit wonky.

Yet— it was a total high.

Within the next six months, and without their consent or any warning to them, I got two more. My parents went absolutely ballistic. 

The second one, my mom called me “crazy” in Korean (“michyeosseo!”) after I texted her a picture  of a small wrist tattoo that says “stay strong” in Korean  letters, Hangul, that I got in London, while studying abroad. 

The third one— another tiny tattoo that said “VGB” on the back of my neck to represent my blog name, Vagabond Youth, I got at New York Fashion Week to commemorate the first time a big brand paid to send me out— when I came home from college, they sat me down on the couch and totally berated me. 

My mom had seen a small clip of me getting it in one of my YouTube vlogs, and showed it to my dad. My dad, known for his short temper, started shouting at me. My mom, with her arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed, nodding in unison with his barking. Their message was simple: If I didn't stop NOW, they would disown me! As the “Golden Child” who maintained perfectionistic tendencies in order to seek love or validation from them and rarely required any reprimanding, I had never heard these specific words being directed at me. And without any comic relief, at that. It was very jarring.

Surprisingly, though my dad has always been the more open-minded, chill parent, he held very traditional ideals about what a daughter should be like, along with outdated stereotypes about what type of people had tattoos:

“My daughter will not be looking like a damn gangster!” I swear I saw smoke coming out of his head.

Shackled by filial piety (“respect your elders!” bullshit) and the guilt of the duty I had to be a “good daughter,” I was so traumatized by the experience that I vowed to never get another tattoo, as long as my parents were alive.

Dramatic, I know. But it was a very real sentiment after that experience.

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