I’ve got a few tattoos. One is great, some are decent, and some aren’t very good. I got my first one a decade ago. It’s scarred up, has some spots missing pigment, and it really needs to be touched up. My parents keep telling me I’m going to regret them someday. Maybe I will, but maybe I won’t. I don’t know yet. They’re all just snapshots of where I was in my life when I got them. Y’all have facebook pictures and/or photo albums. I’ve never really been one for taking pictures, but I’ve got these on me for life.

I can catch a glimpse of my right shoulder blade and remember how I spent a lot of time until about my junior year of college. I remember pulling myself up rocks, fighting gravity, failing constantly, and the elation of finally succeeding. I also remember that winter day I got hurt and I sat on the ground for 40 minutes by myself just feeling cold, dejected, and miserable. I can remember the music I was listening to when I was in my teens. The same music that I don’t really listen to anymore because I grew out of it. But I remember the feelings I had when I did.

Every now and then I’ll see my left shoulder blade in the mirror and remember the summer one of my friends died and how everyone came together to take care of each other. That wasn’t fun. I’d had family members die, but they were all old. Or at least they were all old to me. That was the first real unexpected death I experienced. I was eating lunch at work when I found out about it. I was a little numb after the phone call, and I thought I was fine. I broke down tearing carpet out of a basement I was remodeling that afternoon. I learned a lot of things I didn’t want to learn yet that summer.

I can look at my chest and think about all the nights my friends and I spent listening to albums from a band we’ve listened to since we were in junior high. I can remember all the nights we spent watching them live, arm in arm, just shouting lyrics along with everyone else in the venue, having the best time, and me crying more often than I’d like to admit. I can remember spending way too much time talking about those songs, album liner notes, and the band members’ various side projects. I have quite a few friends with various versions of that tattoo. I don’t talk to them all anymore, but we’re always going to have that.

I can look at my ribs and think about my family. I’ve got my family crest there. It’s the image on a plate that my Grandma keeps in her China closet. As far as I know it’s never been used, but I saw it every single holiday when I was growing up. After my dad learned about my first tattoo he told me that was the only tattoo he would ever consider getting. I wanted to get it from that moment on. I don’t even care if it’s actually my historical family crest. As far as I’m concerned it is to me. I’ll always remember seeing it through the glass on that cabinet door in the dining room, and I will definitely remember the seven hours I had to spend listening to Tool while getting a needle stuck in and out of my body while being insanely hungover because I made a terrible decision to drink the day before. In my defense, I had just turned 21 and it was the first brewfest I could go to.

I forget that I have them all the time. The tattoos that I have are just a part of me now. They’re like moles or freckles at this point. That’s not quite right. You probably have at least one scar with a story behind it, right? You probably don’t think about them every day. These tattoos are just the scars I chose to have.

They’re all covered up by a t-shirt so most people don’t even know I have them. I haven’t gotten a new one in five years, but I’ve thought about getting a few. I don’t know if I’ll ever pull the trigger on getting another one. I don’t know if that’s just because I don’t feel as strongly about things as I did when I was younger, if maybe I’m just not quite as impulsive as I once was, or if I’m just running out of under t-shirt tattoo space that I want to fill with ink.

If you get one, you might regret it at some point, but if you make a reasonable decision based on the place you’re at in life and just go for it you will probably be fine. I’m only 28 though, so maybe I’m just very wrong. So far I don’t regret anything.

“I’m not going to lie. I’m a little drunk right now. That’s a lie. I’m very drunk right now. I’ve been watching the election, and just, fuck. This is depressing.

I don’t even know what to say right now. I’m disappointed in everyone. We as Americans elected a terrible person.”

• Me, last night

I tried to write about how I felt about the election last night, and that’s as far as I got. It was probably a combination of multiple things. My intoxication level, notwithstanding, I had a lot of trouble with it. I was kind of overwhelmed. I was angry. I was sad. I was disappointed. The thing that really hit me though was that by the end of the night I was just numb.

I’m so tired. I don’t want to worry about down ballot elections and supreme court nominations. I don’t want to watch people yell at each other on TV without actually talking about anything. I don’t want to read news articles summarizing things I later learn aren’t even true. I’m just so fucking tired.

I don’t align myself to any particular political party. I work in a very right wing industry, but I’m socially very liberal. I found myself in a difficult place this election. I was stuck between a candidate I don’t trust, and a candidate who I think is genuinely not a good person. I know a lot of people feel the same way.

I have this idea of America in my head. It’s a beautiful place where people can come and find a better life. It’s a place where people help and support each other while working for a greater good. It’s a place where it’s okay to speak out against wrongs you see against your community. It’s a place where you can be a better version of yourself. It’s a place where everyone is supposed to be equal, and even though we aren’t, we’re working towards that. It’s an idealized version of America that I know doesn’t actually exist, but one that I hope someday will.

Last night shook me. It shook me to my core. In my heart of hearts I believed that most people generally had the same idea of America as I do. I was very wrong. We elected a misogynist, openly racist man that hates the freedom of the press to be the next president of the United States of America. I don’t know how this happened. I’m still trying to process it.

People can politically align themselves any way that they want. That’s their business. I don’t care. Do what you want. Politics are intricate and difficult to understand. Honestly, I don’t understand a lot of politics. There are a lot of things I don’t have the time or the energy to learn about. It’s just a lot. That’s not an admission of guilt, that’s an admission of being a person.

There is one thing I know for sure. I’m deeply disappointed in America. I’m deeply disappointed in all of us. Let’s all try and be better.