Tattoo Me.

If I could have had it my way, I would have been all tattooed up by the age of 16. My dad, in all his wisdom, made a deal with me: wait until I turn 18, and he and I would get our first tattoos together, and he’d foot the bill. So I waited.

All I have to say is thank God I waited or else I’d have a bunch of ladybugs, fairies, a unicorn, maybe a wizard or two, and I’m sure a sweet Celtic armband gracing my body today. (Full disclosure: I happen to still love wizards, fairies, and ladybugs, I’m just not into having them tattooed on my body now.)

So, what fabulous design did I come up with for my first tattoo? …the Kanji character for “water” to go on my lower back. Yup, all that waiting and that’s all I could come up with. My dad, a way cooler person than me, had a scorpion tattooed on his calf. And thus began my love affair with tattoos. 

You would think my next tattoo would be a bit more original, but at that time period in my life I was obsessed with Asian culture and all things connected to the ocean, so I added another Kanji character to my body—the character for “sea” on my forearm. 

After that second tattoo, I started to look around and realized I had procured for myself a free membership into a growing club of jocks who were adorning themselves with the Kanji characters for “power,” “strength,” “perseverance,” “I’ll kick your butt,” and “longevity.”  Oh boy.

I think that’s the point in my life, in my early 20s, when I realized tattoos, at least to me, needed to grow from something a bit more personal. I looked at my tattoos and realized they didn’t really mean anything to me. It was the same as saying, Hey I got this medieval wizard tattooed on to me because I like wizards. That just wasn’t good enough for me anymore.

With this said, I recognize a lot of people get tattoos simply because they like something, and the meaning doesn’t need to go any further than that. And that’s perfectly fine. I just realized that like a piece of artwork hanging in my house, artwork adorning my body needed to have a deeper meaning than simply that I liked it.

So what did I do with this new-found realization? I sat and thought. I thought for about three years. And then one day I was putting away some of my laundry and started looking at the lace on one of my mother’s old camisoles. I had always loved its intricate pattern, and loved it even more because my mother had given it to me. And that’s when I got the idea to add lace wings fashioned from my mom’s camisole to my Kanji character on my forearm. 

I brought the camisole to my friend Amy McFadden, the owner of Trademark Tattoo in Carytown, and she was able to help me transform my mundane Kanji character by adding beautiful black and gray lace wings. I was now a proud owner of a personalized piece of artwork.

I have since added to my canvas with other tattoos that hold strong meaning for me. Like the artwork that hangs in my house made for me by friends or picked up during my travels, all my tattoos have a story behind them. With that said, I still might need to get a sweet medieval wizard tattoo someday.