Meeting ‘my’ tattoo artist.

This meeting wasn’t meeting someone ‘new’, it was coincidently, meeting someone again, only this time, in a new light. Someone who was first and foremost, an artist in her own rights. I’d met her through my day job and, when learning she had picked up the gun. I couldn’t wait to let her put gun to skin. Except I couldn’t quite convey in words what I was hoping to have her tattoo for me, so instead I let the need for another tattoo die down. That was, until my bestie booked in for a visit. This gave me a renewed passion to work out what the bloody hell I wanted to get done.

The research began, the sending of ideas back and forth from one side of Australia to the other. We eventually settled on one that was just so ‘us’. In hindsight, we only muddled it up a smidge and you will be able to understand once you see the picture. We chose 2 girls sitting on a swing, one representing me, the other representing her. We should have swapped, so that I got hers and she got mine. But oh well – we still have the memories that go along with it. I still think of her when I see it. And I can’t wait to see her again, and have another version of the picture taken, except this time we need something exceptional in the background, something a little more exciting than my fridge door.

In the same sitting I also got 3 more tattoos, a unalome on my thumb (Buddhist representation of my life’s journey), a black rose on my collar bone (perhaps my need to portray that a flower doesn’t need to be a traditional rose colour to be perfect) and then a specially designed symbol intertwining the ‘M’ for my name and the ‘E’ for her name. No colour on any of these tattoos, and that’s okay. I hadn’t yet evolved into the person I am today with tattoos. Getting tattoos, for me, is very much about the journey itself and not just the end result. Each of these smaller tattoos was building me up to bigger and better representations of myself. It was also on this part of the journey that I accepted that I just don’t draw the parentals attention to them, they just don’t want to know. And you know what, that’s okay with me, because my tattoos are for me, and me alone. I don’t need approval, nor do I need permission.

I wore each one of those tattoos with pride and loved nothing more than sitting side by side on the couch, simultaneously applying paw paw cream and watching t.v with my bestie, just like when we lived together, back in the day.

The session itself involved much laughter, dry humour and as per tradition, bottles of coke. I can’t recall the exact conversations we had that day, but I do recall the emotion of feeling elated, invincible and in awe of my best friend. Someone who had long since struggled with depression, watching her have the semi colon tattooed on, was such a powerful representation and reminder that her story is far from over. She has so much more of life to explore, and so much more to offer the world.

Now as for our tattooist. Some of you may have had her complete some of your tattoos, others may prefer a different vibe of artist, and that’s okay. But for me, there is just something that draws me to her. But by this point in my tattoo journey, I was only just beginning to make sense of this. Jenelle from The LaLoba Experience, makes you feel incredibly calm and confident right from the get-go, and I can say right now, that these four little tattoos on this occasion, was the true beginning of my tattoo journey.