I will admit to being slightly embarrassed that I am getting tattoos relatively late in life. Tattoos are meant to be something you get in your 20s when you're actually worried about your appearance.
I see so many tattoos of my stuff on people - tattoos of my book covers, tattoos of quotes . . . it's kind of daunting sometimes.
Well, these tattoos aren't really rebellion. These tattoos are all tattoos I've had since I have been a pastor.
I have a lot of tattoos. My first tattoo I had when I was a teenager was just a little heart. I am very friendly with a great artist, Scott Campbell, and I started going to him to get tattoos. I'm very spontaneous about what I get.
In your 20s, you are worried about body issues, your weight, how you are dressed. In your 30s, you're like, 'Oh my God, I am getting old. I am going to enjoy everything.'
As for tattoos, it does no good to remind curmudgeons that tattoos have been around for millennia. Yes, we will agree, tattoos have been common - first among savage tribes and then, more recently, among the lowest classes of Western societies.
I feel like when you're in your late teens and early 20s, you just don't think about certain things in your life, and as you get older, you think about your parents getting older.
I have 18 tattoos. My tattoos have kind of become their own person. Everybody does stories on them. It is risky to be successful in the fashion industry and to tat your body up, but I figured, the way that I made my career and the way that I am successful is because I have always been myself.
I've never really understood tattoos. I mean, it's your body - why would you wanna scar it? I don't mind other people's tattoos, but I just never got it.
I love tattoos. And mine symbolise who I really am. I have a Samurai on my left arm. At a subconscious level, I connect to this warrior and model myself on his discipline, skills and honour. There is also a tribal tattoo and a Chinese symbol of faith. I have seen a lot of people getting tattoos just because it's a trend.
I get a lot of tattoos for people in my family. Some of my friends I have tattoos for, some of my religious beliefs, things that represent me in different times of my life. They kind of tell a story. I like them.
All my tattoos are tattoos that I wanted to get, but I couldn't afford.
I promise you that the time will come, if you have tattoos, that you will regret your actions. They cannot be washed off. They are permanent. Only by an expensive and painful process can they be removed. If you are tattooed, then probably for the remainder of your life you will carry it with you.
The tattoos on my legs started because they didn't let me get tattoos on my upper body at work. They would never clear me for anything.
All my tattoos, they've been thought out, thought over, been a work in progress for at least a year before I've got them. So I'm not walking into a tattoo shop, picking tattoos off a wall. It's something that means something to me. It's something that I believe in.
I have five tattoos. One says conquer, another Svatantra, a third mind over matter. I have a heart on my collar bone, and another tattoo saying Always Mommy's Girl. I got these tattoos in different places at different times in my life and they all mean something to me.
Life flies by, and it's easy to get lost in the blur. In adolescence, it's 'How do I fit in?' In your 20s, it's 'What do I want to do?' In your 30s, 'Is this what I'm meant to do?' I think the trick is living the questions. Not worrying so much about what's ahead but rather sitting in the grey area - being OK with where you are.