New Tattoo appointment booked, a body rant, starting a tattoo flash collection

I got my first tattoo in August of 2016. It was simple, my father's handwriting. Prior to his death, I had all these tattoo ideas that I wanted. I pretty much wanted to be covered in these eclectic visions of nature. I just never got there.

I think prior to 2014 I was just really unconfident in regards to my body and my self. I was indecisive and doubtful about my life for a lot of it probably because I wasn't treated well by people and I didn't let people treat me well either. I didn't understand body positivity in any sense that wasn't "well if I am not skinny then no one will love me, if I am not skinny then my mom will disown me, if I am not skinny then I will be fat and then I will DIE." And then I did awful things to my body, I disrespected myself, I let myself get treated badly by people because I loved other people more than I loved myself. I was raised to be humble, to be modest. When I do things I go all out and I do them to a fault. I was shy to a fault, I was humble to a fault. Now I am probably self-assured to a fault, at least, in a sense. I don't know what it was that initiated this change. I think a lot of it was getting out of my 2nd abusive relationship in a row. I spent almost two years with a guy that even though he never touched me he continuously fucked with my head. I really pushed myself to open up to him and to be confident with him and it hurt a lot to do that. Because...I wasn't ready. I knew I wasn't because I had fallen for someone before this relationship and I was not over my last situation. Not in the right ways. I was deeply wounded. I went into the next relationship with R the same way. One of the first nights with R, I sat him down while I was crying and struggling to get things out, and I told him EVERYTHING. Literally, everything about my past that I wasn't over yet, all the things about me that I hate, my body dysmorphic issues, my eating disorder tendencies, my depression. I wanted him to know because I wanted to be fair to him and I wanted him to have a chance to bolt in case he wasn't into it so neither of us would get hurt. Then after the "honeymoon" period of about a few months, he used all of that as ammunition against me every day. I just...became immune at some point.

I put up with it because I loved him. The reason why someone always stays with someone that hurts them. They remember how they were, you romanticize that image, you stay because you think - there is a chance. "He loved me and wanted a chance with me despite my past, I want to be that happy again, I need to stay." It is like a drug and those of us with fucked up brains have super addictive personalities. We get addicted to that love. All you need is one hit of love to feel better about yourself. That is what those bad relationships gave me...one hit of happiness every so often and to me, that was worth staying for.

Until it wasn't.
Until one day either I decided to go cold turkey
or when I saw a pattern of how unhealthy it was and left.

I think that is around the time that I woke up in my body. Like really woke up in it. I still have all kinds of anxiety problems and I still sometimes hear those insults from R whispering in the back of my head. But I love myself now. I somehow got addicted to my own sense of security and that makes me happy now.

More on tattoos.


I am pretty confident I want to try and create a nature-centric half sleeve (maybe full sleeve?) on my left arm now.

I booked a consult with a really talented and renowned local tattoo artist. It took me a little while to build my confidence to email him and I was so sure for some reason he would like...not respond to me. I want him to tattoo a tweaked my soul tarot card (3 of wands from the original version of the Wild Unknown tarot) on my forearm. I think that would be a good place to kind of get started on my left forearm.

If I like his design, I will probably work with him to design some of my envisioned pieces for my half sleeve from the shoulder down to the elbow. I just know that this tarot card design belongs on me and I have felt it since the first day I opened the deck in 2013.

My right arm is just my dad tattoo and my best friend "matching" Espeon tattoo with Nicole's Sylveon. So I think I will reserve my right side for these concrete people in my life and give them their space. Nicole on my shoulder, dad on my forearm. I will give my left to my whimsical self and allow myself and my artist some creative freedom to explore. So I am very excited. So excited that I am not able to sleep.

I also am putting together an idea for a collection of tattoo flash (tattoo art) for my wall space above my desk because it just inspires me. I also was inspired to do this because my friend bought me a really nice "tattoo flash-esque" death card interpretation by Clay Davis that reminded her of me while she was visiting New Orleans on her honeymoon.

Cropped so it wouldn't be the whole dang image.

Anyway, I am excited to create this really cool wall and I am excited to get my tattoo flash collected. I will probably pick something up from the tattoo artist when I visit him too. 

I try to make my music reflect the overall theme in my blog...always.