Tattoos–Part 1

I am addicted to tattoos. I have been tattooed 14 times but only have 12 visible tattoos, as two of them are coverups.

I got my first tattoo on my 18th birthday. I had wanted one since I was in middle school, and I promised myself I’d get one as soon as I was legally able to. A few of my good friends and I drove to Abilene and stopped at a kind of shady shop where the dude who tattooed me looked like Biker Santa. I told him what I wanted, and he drew it up in five seconds, slapped it on, and away we went.  It cost me $30, and it faded in just a few weeks because I didn’t take proper care of it. I did all of the things the dude told me not to, including taking a damn bath and picking at it when it started to peel. It actually had color at one time.  The funny thing is, I wasn’t exactly “allowed” to get tattooed while still living with my parents. Mom didn’t care at all, but my dad was very against them, and told me frequently that women with tattoos were seen as trashy. So I hid this with tall socks for about a month before they saw it. Mom thought it was adorable, and Dad just sort of shrugged since it was a little late to do anything about it.   Here’s what it looked like this summer before I got it covered. I kept this damn thing for 16 years, and I’m happy it’s gone.

This summer, my good friend Jane and I went together to get tattoos. She got her kiddo’s names, and I got this covered up with a gorgeous traditional style peony.

I much prefer this. I am wildly in love with floral tattoos, and all of my favorite tattoos are floral themed.

When I was 21, I fell madly in love with this boy and moved to San Marcos in an impulsive expression of romance to be with him.  When we were dating, we would hang out at Sewell Park, and the river was swarmed by dragonflies the entire summer. Every time I saw one, I thought of this boy, so I got a tattoo on my back to remind me of him and how crazy I was about him.  To this day, John says this is his favorite of my tattoos.

 

I married that boy, and on our 10th wedding anniversary, we got matching tattoos of a cute little symbol I used to draw with finger paints with our son when he was a toddler. It’s a representation of our quirky little family, and it’s the first (and likely only) tattoo I’ve been able to talk John into getting.  John, Perrin, and I have been through more than a lot of families have gone through in our lives together, and I am quite confident this is the forever kind of bond, so I don’t worry about any kind of curse of the couple’s tattoos. John is the only one for me, and I am the only one for him. And Perrin is that piece of the puzzle that completes our picture.

 

And the last one I’ll write about today are my “bro tats” or more appropriately, “ho tats.” My sisters and I are ridiculously close, so while I was still living in Austin, Jen and I got these cute matching Celtic hearts. Stephanie is 11 years younger than me, so she had to wait a couple of years before she could get hers. Jen and I both had a weird reaction to the green ink, so ours were faded a little by the time Steph got hers, which is why hers is so much brighter. We took this pic right after Steph’s was completed. It was also done by a different artist who didn’t feel comfortable copying someone else’s work, so hers has different (and better) shading than ours.

Much more to come!!!