03-04/08 Chapter 587: Tic Tac Boom
These past few days, watching life slowly settle back into its normal rhythm has brought me a sense of peace. Vacations are wonderful, but after spending too much time away from your routine, you start to miss the ordinary things. Seeing you put on your little ballerina outfit this morning before school and knowing you were going to celebrate Caio's birthday with your classmates made me smile. There was something comforting about it. Life was returning to normal. More than ever, I can't wait for our apartment to be finished so we can finally move in and begin our new chapter there.
Speaking of birthdays, every child in your class is turning four this year, and you're the very last one—the baby of the class. 4 years old... who would have imagined that already? As I've mentioned before, birthdays are magical when you're a child. At least they were for me. I'd say that feeling lasts until you're around 16, maybe a little longer. Then something slowly changes. By your 20's, birthdays begin to lose a bit of their magic, and after 30... well, they're not nearly as exciting anymore. Instead of celebrating another year, you become increasingly aware of everything that comes with getting older: mammograms, colonoscopies, more medications, aches and pains that never existed before, the first gray hairs, weaker bones, teeth that aren't quite as strong as they used to be, menopause somewhere on the horizon, and more responsibilities with every passing year. If childhood feels like one long upgrade, adulthood sometimes feels like a gradual downgrade.
But for me, none of that is what scares me most. What truly frightens me is watching my 30's slowly slip toward my 40's without having a second child. I've made peace with the fact that love and even marriage isn't meant to be part of my story. That doesn't hurt that bad anymore. What has always mattered to me is being a mom, and in my mind I never imagined having just one child. Please don't misunderstand me. I will spend the rest of my life grateful that I was blessed with you. But I always pictured our family differently. I never imagined you growing up without a brother/sister, without cousins, without ever becoming an aunt. I wanted so badly to give you that gift because I can picture you so clearly as a big sister—gentle, protective, patient, and overflowing with love. I know you would have been wonderful. But what am I supposed to do with the life I'm living now? My U.S. immigrant visa has already been approved, and I have up to three years to move there. By then, I'll be 36/37. After I arrive, I'll need to work for at least a year before receiving my Green Card, which means I'll be around 38. By then, pregnancy becomes riskier, fertility declines significantly, and starting over with a newborn becomes much more physically demanding. Besides, you would already be so much older that the relationship I always imagined between you and a younger sibling simply wouldn't be the same. Instead of growing up side by side, your little brother or sister might feel more like someone you helped raise than someone you truly grew up with.
Which means that if it's ever going to happen, the time is now. Right now. But how? I'm not with anyone, and your dad doesn't want another child—I even asked him, despite us no longer being together. So maybe it's time to accept that this isn't meant for me. The problem is that my heart has never been very good at accepting reality just because it's true. That's why birthdays no longer feel like celebrations. To me, they feel like a clock ticking louder every year, reminding me that time keeps moving whether I'm ready or not. Sometimes it feels as though my biological clock is leaning over my shoulder, whispering the same cruel sentence again and again: Your time is running out.
06/08 Chapter 588: Think Things Through
Your aunt has actually been back together with Rafael for a while now, and today she went one step further—she got a tattoo with his name. When she first mentioned it, I honestly hoped it was in honor of her son, who also happens to be named Rafael. But no. It was for her husband.
Getting a tattoo of a boyfriend's, girlfriend's, husband's, wife's, or partner's name is, in my opinion, one of the worst tattoo decisions a person can make. I've never even considered it. In the moment, it may feel like the ultimate declaration of love and commitment, but if you stop and think about it rationally, it's also one of the most impulsive choices you can make.
The problem isn't believing your relationship will fail. It's understanding that people change, relationships change, and none of us can predict who someone will be in our lives five, ten, or twenty years from now. You're taking something that may be temporary—even if it doesn't feel that way today—and turning it into a permanent mark on your body. It's almost like taking a beautiful moment in time and carving it into stone, assuming nothing about the future will ever change.
And perhaps the strangest part is that a tattoo doesn't prove you love someone any more than someone who never gets one. Love isn't measured by how much skin you're willing to sacrifice, how much pain you can tolerate, or how large someone's name is across your body. Loyalty, respect, trust, companionship, and years spent choosing each other every single day say far more about the strength of a relationship than any tattoo ever could. If a relationship needs a tattoo to prove it's real, then perhaps the tattoo isn't the biggest issue.
What makes the decision even more irrational is the balance between risk and reward. If the relationship lasts forever, you'll simply spend the rest of your life looking at a tattoo that reminds you of something you already know—that you're together. But if the relationship ends, you'll spend years looking at the name of someone who may no longer belong in your life. That's an enormous risk for almost no real reward.
But then again, thinking things through has never exactly been my sister's greatest strength, and by now I'm completely convinced it never will be.
My cousin Giovanna is another example. She only ever had one serious relationship, with Murilo. He wasn't exactly someone with a promising future, but she loved him anyway. He tattooed the letter G on his arm. They've been broken up for years now, and he still carries that giant reminder on his skin. It's unbelievably foolish.
Ironically, I'm probably not the best person to lecture anyone about tattoos because I have six of them myself.
The first one was a tiny star on my right wrist, done the same day I got another tattoo on my lower back. I've always been in love with the night sky—the moon, the stars, everything about it. I got that tattoo when I was seventeen, and to this day I don't regret it for a second.
The second tattoo was the one on my lower back, and it hurt more than any other. It was a slightly crooked heart with a peace symbol inside it, copied from a necklace my mom had given me. More than the heart itself, I loved the peace symbol because I genuinely believe peace is what this world needs most. The meaning still resonates with me today, but the tattoo itself doesn't. It's fairly large, colorful, and placed just above my butt, which, if I'm being honest, isn't exactly a location I find appealing anymore. I can't help laughing at the thought of myself as an old woman still walking around with a colorful tattoo there. If I could erase one without hesitation, that would be it.
The third tattoo was for Toddy, my cat. When he died, I was devastated. Getting that tattoo somehow brought me a sense of peace that I desperately needed. My grief became much lighter afterward, and for that reason alone I'll never regret why I got it. What I didn't think about at the time was that Toddy wouldn't be the last pet I would ever love. I had no idea that one day I'd have many more animals in my life. You can't realistically get a new tattoo every time one of your beloved pets passes away. That was something seventeen-year-old me—or however old I was then—never stopped to consider. The tattoo is also the biggest one I have and it's full of blue ink. Blue is one of the hardest colors to remove with laser treatment, and as far as I know, there's only one clinic here in São Paulo that specializes in it. It costs well over a thousand reais per session, and there's no guarantee of how many sessions it would take. Today, I would do something much simpler and much smarter: a tiny paw print with a little halo above it, representing every pet I've loved and lost—Toddy, Snowbell, Achilles, and all the ones who will sadly come one day. It would tell the same story in a much more timeless way. So that's tattoo number two I would gladly replace.
The fourth tattoo came from something I saw online. A woman had a beautiful moon-and-star design on her leg, and since I've always loved the night sky, I decided to get something similar. Looking back, the first mistake was copying someone else's tattoo. None of my other tattoos were copied from anyone. Either they were my own ideas or they were custom-made by the artist. I think tattoos should feel personal. The second mistake was that I already had a star representing exactly the same thing. I didn't need another one. The third mistake was making it colorful, which once again made removal much more difficult and expensive. And finally, I never considered something completely unrelated: years later I began laser hair removal treatments over almost my entire body. The laser can't be used over tattoos. So now I have smooth skin everywhere except for that one patch on my leg, where I constantly have to shave because the hair remains. It annoys me far more than I ever imagined it would. I don't hate the tattoo—I just think it serves no purpose anymore. That's number three I'd happily remove.
The fifth tattoo was for Snowbell. His death was so sudden and heartbreaking that I felt exactly the same need I had felt after losing Toddy. I wanted something permanent to honor him, and strangely enough, the moment I got the tattoo, I felt lighter. The grief became easier to carry. Unfortunately, the tattoo artist made a mistake. She added a little mark on his forehead without ever asking me. Snowbell never had a mark there. I was furious at the time because it was such an obvious detail to get wrong. Eventually I got used to it, but it still reminds me of how careless some professionals can be. Today I would replace this tattoo for the exact same reason as Toddy's. Instead of two separate portraits, I'd rather have one delicate paw print with a halo representing every pet who has ever left a permanent mark on my heart. That brings my total to four tattoos I would erase if I could.
The sixth—and hopefully last—tattoo I ever got was the one I shared with your dad. When he started getting tattoos, I felt like I wanted to support him, so I spent a long time thinking about what I could get that would still feel meaningful to me. I chose a design inspired by San Diego, the city I love so much, where your dad and I met, and ultimately the place that led us to you. It's a tribute to him, to me, and to you, without needing to write anyone's name. That's the thing—if you want to honor someone, there are countless ways to do it without tattooing their initials or their full name across your body. Mine sits on my right arm, it's beautifully done, and I still love it. It reminds me of a place that changed my life forever.
When I look at all six tattoos together, I realize something interesting. Four of them I would remove today without much hesitation. Two I would absolutely keep. I would probably replace the portraits of Toddy and Snowbell with one tiny paw print behind my neck, honoring every pet I've ever loved. That would leave me with just three tattoos, each one simple, timeless, and deeply meaningful.
That's why people always tell you to think ten times before getting a tattoo. It's permanent. You have to think this through. Even your dad, who is a tattoo artist himself, only has one tattoo, and as far as I know, he has never regretted it.
So, my love, when you're old enough, you can absolutely get tattoos if that's what you want. Just think carefully. Think about the design, the size, the colors, the placement—every detail matters. As I'm writing this in 2026, tattoo removal is expensive, painful, and requires many sessions. Maybe by the time you're grown, technology will have evolved. Maybe there will be painless lasers or even creams that erase tattoos easily. I hope so. But today, removing a tattoo is far more difficult than getting one.
That's why the best tattoo decision you'll ever make is the one you don't rush into.
