tattoo

Today’s Totally Awkward Tuesday post is a mixture of an extremely awkward situation for me, and a post about something y’all have asked me about in previous posts.

So to give you a little background on myself, let me begin by saying I am not a religious person. It’s not that I am anti-religion in any way, I just am not a religious person. I hope that this does not bother you and I hope not to offend anyone. I am who I am. I’m not going to tell you that I am “spiritual” because that would be a little too cliche for me. I have, however, become comfortable with who I am and where I am at.

I was raised Roman Catholic. I was very involved in my church growing up and even into my college years. But for reasons that shall remain personal to me and not be posted on this blog, I no longer attend or associate with any religious sect. It’s personal and I am not trying to offend anyone. Promise.

{Tree Tattoo: located on the inside of my right arm}

{Strength: located on the inside of my left wrist}

{Voice: Inside of my right wrist}

{Leaves on my feet!}

So, anyways, I have always been very careful at separating my personal life from my work life (ehh, maybe I haven’t always been careful, but this is def something I have learned along the way and watch very closely now. Lessons learned). But last August my company paid our department to go on a team building outing (two of our departments were merging and they thought this would be a great way to bring us all together). We went on a picnic, complete with volleyball, kickball and a canoe trip. I had to come into work for a few hours prior to the outing to work on some crucial projects. After I had finished my couple hours of work, I decided to change in the bathroom located on our main floor of the building.

It was an excruciatingly hot day. Like, 98 degrees or something ridiculous (OK, for Ohio that is very ridiculous). Per our management team, shorts and a tank top were completely acceptable at this event. My department was full of mostly women. The other department (a techie group) was full of mostly men. Though I was hesitant, I changed into something I knew I would be comfy in: sports shorts and a racer back tank.

I walked out of the bathroom and was greeted by two women I work with. They happen to be two women I have to train. They approached me about my tattoos, which isn’t necessarily out of the ordinary. People ask me about them all the time (hence the reason I included pictures when referring to them this time!). But then they blurted out “Jesus hates your tattoos.”

I just stood there.

In shock. And smiled. Because I didn’t know what to say. But I was enraged. I had never had someone so blatantly tell me what was on their mind. And it was hurtful. And I am not a hurtful person, so I didn’t even mumble a rebuttal. And I walked away and got very upset that someone would even say that.

How awkward they made me feel that I would have to continue working with them after making comments like that!

To top off the awkwardness of the day, during our outing someone was taking photographs for the department website. I thought nothing of it… until I actually SAW the pictures. There are pictures of everyone from the outing… but during the game of kickball (where I had to round the bases ONCE) there were pretty much 30 pictures of me rounding the bases… in a tanktop… and, yeah. Umm… awkward. LOL.

Hope you enjoy. it was awkward even to write about. 😛