I wouldn’t consider myself a desperate person, however some of my actions speak otherwise. Ever since I turned 18 years old, I wanted tattoos. Tattoos to set me apart, tattoos to make me stand out… tattoos to draw a line between who I am and who I wanted to be. A line I could cross over just by sitting for a 4 hour session at a tattoo shop. Like most people however, money has always been too short for chasing extravagant wishes. But for a moment, I had some extra wind in my sails. I’d been gaining a following from my paintings on Instagram and doing markets and shows, and I found I fell into an opportunity to trade a painting for a tattoo.
I had been dreaming of getting a big snake on my arm for some time- I enjoyed the design elements and mystery in snake tattoos. And I thought that it was my style, or at the very least, congruent to my style, because, let’s be honest, who really knows themselves?
You could say we’d be lucky to travel through the years without fully loosing ourselves. You could also say we’d be blessed to be able to do the total opposite. Perhaps… to have the opportunity to go full circle is the greatest blessing of all.
The tattoo I wanted was a snake. That’s all I told the tattoo artist. I didn’t even know what type of snake I was getting. “Just surprise me!” I said. I felt as though I was embracing an adventurous spirit in this spontaneity, and in a way that felt empowering.
The painting I was trading it for was of a turtle with a house for its shell. Just a cute painting that harkens on the fact that a turtle never leaves its home- its zone of comfort. Kind of ironic symbolism, in retrospect.
Enter the terrible tattoo part I.
The style was traditional, and the design was a very masculine viper, with bright red and yellows all ready to strike. It wasn’t the soft mysterious snake I’d been dreaming of. It was coiled and tense. Even the “application” of the tattoo on my arm felt oddly aggressive and tense. And I could feel its aggressive tension sitting on my arm for years, glaring up at me every time I looked left. I hated it.
I started ignoring my left arm. It was in a very prominent place, so I just stopped looking left. I started wearing long sleeves even when it was hot. If I had to look at it, I would glare back.
This went on for a few years until I discovered stick and poke. I was kind of amazed that I could buy a cheap kit off of Amazon and give myself a permanent tattoo. I started with my spirit animal, a rabbit on my other arm. It was a very short leap over to my left for my grand coverup.
Enter the terrible tattoo part II.
I had a couple of drinks one night and had been completely over my snake tattoo for some time now. I took out my needles and filled a little cup full of jet black ink. It was a big undertaking, but I starting stabbing away at the snake. I stabbed it well over 1,000 times. With every stab I inched closer to liberating myself from its grip.
Now when people see my arm, they see a large black mass that appears to be growing thorns. I knew there wasn’t a whole lot I could do, so I made it into a giant root ball with the soft wispy coils of bramble filling in for my lost dream snake. It’s still a little crude looking because you can very faintly see the snake under the surface, but I feel relieved and empowered that I had total control over it.
So, even though it is still a terrible tattoo, it is MY terrible tattoo. The paths to self discovery are inherently imperfect, and that is the beauty in growth.
