In the moments before the artist’s whirring tattoo needle touched my skin, my mind flooded once again with decades of judgments and admonitions. Listening to the echoing voices in my head, you would have thought that getting a tattoo meant the instant perks of gang membership, a career in the illegal sex trade, and the very real possibility that one day Charlize Theron would gain 30 pounds and shave off her eyebrows to portray my ruination in a movie.