Thursday 16 July 2015

MY TATTOOS AND WHAT THEY MEAN!

Hey Y'all,
I feel like it has been FOREVER since I posted last even though it only been a couple of days. I wanted to continue with a post every night but I have been so exhausted from work and what not that I needed to just come home and sleep! However, there will be a very special post going up this weekend, one I am very excited about; my first DIY home decor tutorial! Anyone who knows me knows this is the kinda stuff I absolutely live for! I'm always painting/making something for my room, always buying new furniture…I'm obsessed with interior design. So I'm looking forward to that and I hope y'all are too. Now moving on to the actual post…. my tattoos.

I am very aware tattoos aren't for everyone, but some people get them for themselves, for the art or for someone special. I only have 3 tattoos at the present point in time, but I certainly hope to add more! I mean, I definitely will but they do cost some serious dollars.

Note: photos will be screenshotted from my insta because I'm lazy!

#1

So, this one is a bit of a story. I got this 2 days after I turned 18 because I'm not really into going out and drinking and all the other stuff that you can do when you're 18 and what not. I went down and got this one done in Wollongong (I live in Canberra) and my mum had absolutely no idea I was getting it which made it all the more exciting at the time. The reasoning at the time behind getting the triangle was that I had 3 siblings (a side represented a sibling), apparently if its facing the way it is it brings positive energy and apparently triangles also represent strength. I kinda did a bit of research before I got it to make sure I wasn't getting some like symbol that actually meant something weird like anal sex or something! Now I just look at it and I think to myself, great work Erica…you have a triangle, congrats (sarcasm of course). But I also just remind myself that it was kind of about the adventure and excitement of it all. I was never much of a risk taker growing up and this was the first real risk I ever took.
I got home later that night and showed my mum and she just rolled her eyes at me and said something mean that I can't remember. But when she got up the next morning she said to me, "You know I only did that to make you feel bad, I don't actually care" and I was just thinking WHAT?! The first thing I have ever done to defy you and you don't care?! Definitely not the reaction I expected or wanted!
But now, pretty much on a weekly basis, someone teases me about being in the illuminati. Or if I fake tan they say it looks like a dorito and I'm just like, "yeah whatever boys, you only wish you had a permanent dorito on you. Now I never have to live without my beloved doritos". It's all just banter in the end.

#2

This was the one I put some genuine thought into. I had wanted pretty much forever to get a tattoo in tribute to my grandparents because they are the 2 people in this world that I love the most. Unfortunately, I got that tattoo sooner than expected. We had a call that my grandad was getting worse and we would have to up there (they lived in Queensland with my Aunty) in a couple of weeks to see him and stuff. I then got my mum to book me in to get this tattoo pretty much ASAP because I wanted it before we went so I could show it to them both. Anyway, as it turns out, the day I got the tattoo was the day that we had to drop everything and drive all the way from Canberra to Queensland because it looked like my grandad wasn't going to make it through the week. When we arrived at the house, I was in a tank top but still no one seemed to notice. It's not exactly like I was complaining though, seeing as a lot of my family had some choice words to say about my triangle. After about half an hour, I pluck up the courage and say to my grandma, "I have a surprise for you. Not sure if you're going to like it or kill me though". I show her the tattoo and she and the rest of my family gasp, and while she appreciated it, she hated the fact that I had got another tattoo. I copped the biggest lecture from my aunty and I just zoned out because I genuinely didn't care what any of them had to say.
Later that day we went to the hospital to see my grandad. Because he was in so much pain, he had had a lot of morphine injected into him and was kind of asleep the whole time. You could kind of pull him out of it but only for a few seconds at a time. It definitely took me a good half an hour to stop crying before I could even go anywhere near him. In the end, my aunty dragged me over and started to try and wake him up and she said, "Look grandad, Erica got another tattoo!! It says yours and grandmas birthdays". He opened his eyes for a second and looked at it and grunted and pulled one of his typical disapproving faces but I didn't care because at least he got to see it before he passed. 4 Days later he passed away, and despite what everyone said about my tattoo, I was so so happy I got it and that my grandad got to see it. While he would've said, "Ooh Erica, I told you no more!", I just know he would've loved what I did for him and my grandma.

#3

It says: "What's Past is Prologue" if you couldn't see it! Now this one was the scary one. This was the biggest of them all so far. And by big, I mean it definitely takes up the whole outside of my forearm, so I was very nervous but also very excited. My thought processes behind this one was that I had always seen and loved the quote and what made me love it even more was the fact that it's from Shakespeares, The Tempest. In school, I absolutely loved studying shakespeare and I am most certainly a HUGE literature nerd. So the fact that I love books and reading and all that definitely helped inspire this one. But I also love how to anyone else, it's just a simple "What's past, is past" quote, but to me it has so much more meaning that no one else knows unless I tell them.
I was definitely worried about the pain for this one too. Like, I don't have the skinniest forearms but I do still have bones in there! Surprisingly, I didn't hurt as much as I was expecting it to. And it only took about 1.5 hours to do. Again, there were a lot of comments from my aunty saying how I'll be a dropkick and that I have no chance getting a good job, but in the end, you don't get tattoos to please other people. You get them for you and only you.



ADVICE:
- The only advice I will give is that research your design and make sure it is what you want. Also research an artist. Find an artist that has a portfolio that you love and who you know will do what you want perfectly. Make sure it's a reputable studio too!

- Don't let anyone talk you into something you don't want or talk you out of something you do want. At the end of the day it's your body and you can do what you please (if you're 18+). Like I said, you get tattoos for yourself, not to please other people. Before you get one, if you're thinking if other people are going to like it then you are probably getting one for the wrong reasons.

- When it comes to pain, before I got a tattoo, I always thought I could never get one because I'm so afraid of needles and I have such a low pain threshold. That wasn't the case. While yes, getting a tattoo doesn't tickle, it's not excruciating painful either. It's more of just an annoying, stinging feeling, but the noise of the gun definitely distracts you from it. However, it is different for everyone. Some people make have more sensitive skin than others, you just don't know until you try.

So that concludes this post. I definitely wasn't expecting it to be so long! I think I may ramble too much…
One day, I definitely hope to look like Kat Von D! Life goals right there.



X


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