Ink Therapy

What tattoo do you want and where would you put it?

What tattoo do I want?! Are the prompt people reading all of my recent posts where I talk about my next amazing tattoo? And now they decided to give me a whole prompt to gush about it?! Nice!

Well, since this is asking about what I want, I suppose I’ll take some creative liberty and talk briefly about what I already have. I have 8 total. I only remember the first one which is a turtle at the base of the back of my neck. I don’t remember what order I got the rest in. But here’s what else I have:

• An orange sun on my ankle because orange is my favorite color.
• A fancy goldfish on the right side of my chest because I used to keep goldfish and considered my aquarium a hobby. This one will either get covered up later or majorly touched up. The yellow in its fins have faded almost completely away and now it looks like some weird, alien-like lizard instead of a goldfish. I’m thinking about something yarn related instead.
• An apple on the top of my left thigh because I was a teacher for many years.
• My husband’s name in a heart over my left breast, where my actual heart is because I love him. People looked at me very skeptically when I got that one because we had only been together for a year when I got it.
• A band of flowers around my left bicep, simply because I thought it would look cool. It does. But not for long because my next tattoo will cover it up.
• The word ‘sisters’ and three hearts with the third heart colored in because I’m the youngest. We all have the same tattoo with our birth order heart colored in.

• Finally, another heart but with the word ‘love’ in it on my left bicep. This is in honor of the group “To Write Love On Her Arms” which raises awareness about self-harm and other mental health issues. Since I have experience being someone who self-harmed, I got that tattoo as a way to literally write love on my arm. A symbol that I will never intentionally hurt myself again. My left arm is the one that I always cut.

Now, what I am about to get is my left arm filled in with flowers. From just over my shoulder and down to my elbow. The band will be covered and the flowers will come out from behind the heart. This is the inspiration picture I gave the artist:

But not just any flowers. Actually, I told him I don’t care what kind of flowers they are as long as they are mostly shades of blue. Bright, electric, shocking blue. Other colors are ok but I want blue to be what is noticed first. The kind of blue that teenagers dye their hair.

I’ve written about that too, the blue hair phenomenon. In a nutshell, girls who would graduate from the Catholic school where I worked would always come back to visit with a partially shaved head, a nose ring, or Marge Simpson blue hair. It was their way of expressing their freedom from our strict dress code rules. I would also like to express my freedom from all the toxicity of that school. I am free, I’m happy, I feel wild. Rather than dying my hair blue like the girls did, I’m going to cover my arm with blue flowers.

My first appointment is April 19th. That will be just the outline done that day. Then a month later I’ll go back and get the shading done. It may take a third appointment. I’m not sure yet. But I do know that I am absolutely sure this tattoo will be amazing. I have already bought some new tank tops to show it off this summer.

I don’t have any issues with tattoos. I never hesitated for a moment in deciding to get one…or 8. Maybe it’s my rebellious spirit. Maybe it’s my desire to be a bad ass. Maybe I like having pretty things, meaningful things expressed on my body. Maybe it’s all of that.