Why a Turtle & Butterfly?

<--- My butterfly tattoo.


A long time ago when I first started doing online things I used the name not_so_evil_angel, which at that moment in time suited me just fine. It was partly my mother's creation and partly a friends if I remember correctly. As change is inevitable my online pseudonym has evolved to TurtlesButterfly. I married a man with the nickname turtle and the turtles he has collected have taken over our house. I chose butterfly because of my butterfly tattoo. I knew for awhile that I had wanted a tattoo, but I wanted something tasteful, almost elegant, and something that suited me. About 5 years ago and after an hour or so of looking at flash I found the piece of art that screamed "I want to be on you forever." I think the butterfly has been an awesome choice for my tattoo. I added it to me after I was almost done with college and after someone very close to me had passed away and I was going out on my own. I think a butterfly is also a symbol of freedom, which I tend to enjoy. (I also have the tattoo on my foot and my mother has a tattoo of a ladybug on her foot that she added once the divorce was final.) So, I am a butterfly that belongs to a turtle. I never thought that the liberal woman in me would allow myself to "belong" to any man, but this particular man has won me over. I can't imagine life without him and God willing I won't have to experience that. I'm so lucky to have had him come into my life and the fact that my family loves him makes the deal even sweeter. One of my sisters told me shortly after we were married that Dave is now her brother and I am just his wife. My family (Mom, Katie, and Maggie) are the craziest ladies I know, but they mean more to me than anything else ever will.

Something Wikipedia had to say about butterflies:

Symbolism

According to the “Butterflies” chapter in Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, by Lafcadio Hearn, a butterfly is seen as the personification of a person's soul, whether they be living, dying, or already dead. One Japanese superstition says that if a butterfly enters your guestroom and perches behind the bamboo screen, the person whom you most love is coming to see you. On the contrary, large numbers of butterflies are viewed as bad omens. When Taira no Masakado was secretly preparing for his famous revolt, there appeared in Kyoto so vast a swarm of butterflies that the people were frightened—-thinking the apparition to be a portent of coming evil.^[42]

The Russian word for butterflies, pronounced "bah' bch ka", it also means "bow tie". It's a diminutive of "baba" or "babka" (= "woman, grandmother, cake", whence also "babushka" = "grandmother" in English, "babushka" = "a grandma-style headkerchief") and in Greek it means soul.^[43] According to Mircea Eliade's Encyclopedia of Religion, some of the Nagas of Manipur trace their ancestry from a butterfly.^[44]

In Chinese culture two butterflies flying together are a symbol of love. Also a famous Chinese folk story called Butterfly Lovers. The Taoist philosopher Zhuangzi once had a dream of being a butterfly flying without care about humanity, however when he woke up and realised it was just a dream, he thought to himself "Was I before a man who dreamt about being a butterfly, or am I now a butterfly who dreams about being a man?"

In some old cultures, butterflies also symbolize rebirth into a new life after being inside a cocoon for a period of time.

Some people say that when a butterfly lands on you it means good luck. The idiom "butterflies in the stomach" is used to describe a state of nervousness.