The Dance of Impermanence

(Leia em 🇧🇷Português aqui)

I’ve often been asked if I would ever get a tattoo. For many, tattoos are beautiful expressions of identity, memory, or artistry. But for me, the answer has always been clear: no, I will never have a tattoo on my body.

This decision is not about judgment or rejection of tattoos themselves. In fact, I admire the creativity and courage in those who wear their stories on their skin. My choice simply comes from a deep awareness of impermanence: of how much we, as human beings, are always changing.

We sometimes talk about life as if there is a “solid self” we can capture or preserve, but biologically and spiritually, that isn’t true. Every seven years, nearly all the cells in our bodies are replaced. The person I was seven years ago - her beliefs, fears, joys, and even her biology - has dissolved and reshaped into someone new. In another seven years, I’ll again be a different person, carrying fresh layers of experience and growth.

To me, a tattoo would feel like freezing a version of myself in ink, a version I might no longer be. I wouldn’t want to bind my ever-changing story to a fixed symbol. Instead, I let my body remain a blank canvas, one that evolves invisibly with each season of life.

This decision is my way of honoring impermanence. Just as I cannot step into the same river twice, I cannot meet the same “me” twice. Change is not something to resist: it is the very heartbeat of life.

And so, my skin remains unmarked, but not empty. It carries scars that tell stories, freckles that shift with time, and lines that will deepen with laughter and age. These, too, are tattoos of impermanence, carved by life itself.

For me, the absence of a tattoo is its own kind of statement: that I am not a fixed being; that I am not meant to be captured, that I am willing to embrace the beauty of change, again and again.

I am not a stone; I am a river. Always moving. Always becoming.