My Body Art

Each of my tattoos has a story. The first one I got while out with this Chic (this is what I'm going to call her in this story) I liked. She and I had been friends for several years since the beginning of Middle School. One night as adults, we decided to go out about town together. I don't remember anything else we did except the tattoo place in Downtown Orlando.

Chic told me she was in the mood to get another tat at some point during our little adventure and how she thought I should get one. I was interested in getting one but was afraid of the pain because I hated needles with a passion. I still hate needles, but I like tattoos. She told me if I get one she'll pay for it. So I said screw it and got a tattoo. I did the normal newcomer girly thing and got a butterfly. I still don't regret it, either.

While I'm in the chair getting this tattoo on the back of my right shoulder (I wanted to hide it from my dad because I was terrified of him. He and my mom were against tattoos because of the bible.), my shoulder starts twitching. The artist complained to me to stop moving. I was like, "I have no control over this kind of movement, dude." I don't remember his response anymore.

I picked a good spot for it because my dad didn't notice it until I forgot I had it and wore a spaghetti-strap dress around him. My dad's response was to say a sarcastic "Nice" while giving me the look of disapproval. I told my dad that I knew what he felt about it and what they taught me the bible says, but I also didn't see how the art on my body is a bad thing. Since it is my temporary temple for the soul, I did the same thing churches do to their windows. That was the last I heard from him about it. The tattoo is faded now, but still beautiful to me. It's a great memory!

My next tattoo was the result of my artist brother complaining that the first one on my body wasn't his work. So, after some long thought about it, I told him I wanted a tribal style rose vine with my children's names on it. At the time I had two children. Before I finally got the work done, I had another and asked him to add her to it.

I got a quote I was happy with from another parlor and saved the money to get it done. This one either had to be an upper back piece or a "tramp" stamp with the way my brother had drawn it, and I liked it as is. Since I already had one in the upper back area and had an idea of how I was going to keep going with this, I went with the lower back/hip area. This tattoo took about three hours because my brother drew it pretty intricately. It's beautiful, but it was so painful! During the first hour and a half, the artist had told me he should have quoted a higher price, but he didn't realize how detailed my brother had drawn this. During the second half of the work, my first half started feeling all the pain. It felt as though he was doing the work on the opposite side. Once done with it, the artist told me never to let my brother draw my tattoos again.

Eventually, I plan to add more to the vine going up to the butterfly and have it be a whole back piece. I just haven't decided what else I want to add into it yet. And there's most likely an issue with them fluidly running together.