After my first tattoo, (tiny Kanji symbols), I spread my wings a little further and went a tiny bit bigger, after all, we can't rush these things and I certainly had a lot of courage to build up. This time I chose a cute little tiger cub, with my favourite flower, a frangipani (back before they were mass produced and printed on everything). Once again Mr. Pink did my tattoo and happily tattooed me with the colour pink. Unfortunately, my bestie couldn't come this time as she was at work, but luckily, I didn't have to go alone. Because really, what 20 year old wants to have to do things by herself, right? One of our other mates substituted in her place, and even he couldn't get over the difference between tattoo one and tattoo two.
Gone was the fear of the unknown, I knew what the feeling of the tattoo gun would be like and this, in itself, took away the majority of any possible pain. This time, I chose my hip, luckily, I've never been super skinny so I still had a little padding above my hip bone. I laid back on the tattoo table, arms folded back behind my head and chatted away to Mr. Pink, laughing, watching him work and not giving a care at all to the pain. Ignorance was bliss.
Once again I was super proud of my tattoo and would lower the top of my jeans to reveal my hip for anyone who wanted to see it. I'd conquered a fear I didn't even know I had. A fear of judgement perhaps, a fear of physical pain, I was growing and evolving into who I am today. But still a long way to go before I would truly be me. Truly not care what anyone thought, back then, in that moment, I was all about approval. Caught in a crossfire of acceptance of peers, and ignorance of family. And honestly I feel that getting my tattoos at the very beginning was more about me being able to put my emotional foot down and say 'well, this is me!'.
I'm honestly not sure how long I managed to keep these hidden at home. Knowing I had them and the parentals didn't, gave a rush of both anxiety and adrenaline. But for some reason, I hadn't built up the courage, even as an ADULT mind you, to be able to openly go 'so I did this thing'. Their ignorance, in this case, was bliss.
Once again, there was a lesson to be learnt, that the thought behind the placement of tattoos is crucial. Over the years my poor tiger has been subject to stretching due to pregnancy and the lingering stretch marks, but I'm proud of these, my tiger earnt her stripes.
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