Did you know that a butterfly can have 70% of its wings damaged and still fly? Even that broken it can flit and fly and soar on the breeze. Now that is my spirit animal — or bug, whatever.

I looked at myself in the bathroom vanity and I barely recognized myself. My eyes weren’t blue anymore, but gray. My face drawn and sagging. My once lean body was now puffy from my steady diet of processed Ho-Ho’s, chips, alcohol and cortisol.

I thought about that broken butterfly as I picked up the black dry erase marker I had bought at the store that day. It squeaked as I began to write on the vanity mirror.

You are a warrior!

I felt more like a prisoner of war. I was living under the same roof with the man I was divorcing. The stories he told me about myself were like daggers into my identity. Unwanted but none the less penetrating.

He never hit me, but his words had punched me over and over until I was broken. The ringing of his shouting lingered in my ears.

It was time for me to start telling me my own stories. You are a warrior! is the new story I want to tell. It’s what I want to believe. Those words I would repeat to myself while looking at my reflection. Sometimes through gritted teeth, sometimes through tears. It became my mantra. I was turning the tables on his propaganda.

On this chilly winter night, I could still feel the ache of the deep cut that once adorned my wrist. Even though it was completely healed it still whispered it’s presence. I looked down at that scar and thought, “I don’t want to look at my arm and see my weakest moment anymore. I want to see my strength.

An idea was sparked.

Over time I would write many affirmation on the bathroom mirror. But the one that truly stuck in my heart, the one that started it all, was about a warrior.

I started to see myself as one. I would stand-up and say No More. I would fight, for myself. I would struggle and then grow more strong.

The time came for me to reckon with my new reality. I had to stop hanging on to the my idea of how I wanted things to be and embrace how they were.

That was the night I walked into the tattoo parlor only blocks away from my old home, where my ex-husband still lived. I sat in the black pleather chair and swiveled nervously. My friend stood close by for moral support.

The tattooed man sat across from me next to tray full of the tools of his trade. I explained what I wanted, the font, the letters, the imagery. His bony fingers sketched a prototype on my forearm. After several tweaks and a spelling correction the final masterpiece was brought into existence.

Everything was cleaned, sterilized and prepped. He grabbed his machine it started to buzz with a high pitch sound. The first touch to my skin and I instinctively jumped. As a tiny little needle embedded itself deep into my skin it would deposit a tiny about of black die.

Tiny tears formed in the corners of my eyes but they did not break forth. I had felt worse pain that this. Sweat beaded up on my lip and my legs started to stick to the fake leather chair. It wasn’t a large Tatoo. Small in fact compared to the average but, it was born into this world with all the pain the birth of something new brings with it.

He wiped across my skin and smeared away the blood. This new being I had brought into the world was now clearly visible.

The words read, “Heart of a Warrior”. Just above it was a tiny butterfly. Not the ornate colorful kind. This one was angular, stark, almost viking-like. The kind that arrives at its destination, 70% destroyed but still flying.

Being a warrior is one thing but having the Heart of a Warrior is something else. Anyone can fight. But the one that fights with heart cannot be beaten.

My relationship with this tattoo is as complicated as some of the relationships in my life. Sometimes I’m ashamed, sometimes proud. Sometimes I feel guilty, sometimes inspired. I am always reminded.

Reminded of who I am.

What I am made of.

What I have endured.

Reminded that if I don’t tell my own story, someone else will tell it for me.