My Tattoo: Bold Moves, part 1
I'm making more bold decisions than I used to.
Perhaps my new decade has given me more confidence in who I am, what I can do. I keep telling my friend, "This is 40." lus why not try new things before it's too late? What is there to lose?
In these next few posts, I'll share a few places I've boldly gone lately:
#1: GETTING MY FIRST TATTOO:
I always thought I'd get a tattoo. A long time ago, I said by age 40. I didn't have some huge list of goals to do before 40, but this remained in the back of my mind. As my birthday approached, I went with it.
Background: My younger brother has a bunch of tattoos. As does his wife. They've befriended a guy in Lexington who does amazing work. I've seen the evidence on their skin! So I figured I'd go with a guy I trusted. And then I could get my tattoo expert of a brother to go with me.
Design decision: Decisions aren't my forté. So I've always put off getting a tattoo because I couldn't decide. I often thought I'd choose words. But problem #1—I like a lot of words. How do I narrow it down? Problem #2—I'm wordy, so how could I edit enough to fit the words I want on a small space of my body? Problem #3—I like a lot of words, so how do I give preference?
Therefore it dawned on me—an image of a writing utensil could represent words for me. All the words I want to say. All the words I've ever written, spoken, edited. It could remind me to keep creating words. I chose a feather quill as the writing utensil for several reasons, one of which is my maiden name, Birdwhistell.
Still undecided: Everyone asked if I was worried about the pain. No, I was worried about if I made the best design choice. Even up until the day of my scheduled tattoo, I was deciding—I found a new feather picture that morning and liked it better, so I showed that to the tattoo artist. When he put the design on transfer paper to determine placement on my wrist, I still freaked out with indecision—is it too big? does it look OK there? My brother just smiled and shook his head at me. He's had so many tattoos in so many places, my indecision was amusing to him. I quickly FaceTimed with Steve, and he liked the potential placement and size. So I felt better.
Moment of truth: Since it was a small design and black-only line art, it went quickly with little pain. (Perhaps a larger one would've been a different story.) I LOVE how it turned out! And I haven't gotten tired of it yet! (Notice how I said my "first" tattoo? Now I may want more!)
Find out my other three bold moves: my audition, my writing, my project.