I know it’s a cliché but every now and again life chucks a hard pain shaped curveball in your direction. Recently I had one of these curveballs.

It crashed heavily into my body.

It wobbled momentarily in my hands before I managed to hold onto it tightly.

Then I chucked the ball right out of the park.

And enough of the baseball analogy but it somehow seems to work here, for me anyway.

So what’s one of the first things I thought of when I realised that although this curveball has knocked me sideways, it has not actually killed me? I want a tattoo. I need a tattoo. I need this period in my life to be marked so I never forget how I resilient I can be.

Those who know me know that I love tattoos. I’ve been under the needle quite a few times and as I get older I want more. And I want them to mean something (although I have plans for a couple of ‘just because they are pretty’ ones).

So I now have a new tattoo on my wrist. It’s an inking of a few words that give me strength, hope and happiness, and it’s in Sanskrit because:

a) I like the look of the script. It is strong and beautiful.

b) It reminds me of India where I had a rollercoaster trip of extreme joy/extreme misery. And despite my love/hate feelings towards the country the love trumps the hate and one day I hope to go back. And this pretty much sums up how I’m feeling at the moment. Love should always trump hate.

and

c) because I want the words for me and only me (unless you read Sanskrit of course!).

So don’t ask me what it means. Just know that I will read the words every morning and smile. And curve ball – you hit me and you winded me and you turned me upside down. But you didn’t break me and now I just look at life from a different angle.