As many of you read in my last post, I lost a very dear friend of mine a day short from a month ago. I would be lying if I told you I've come to terms with it. I still wake up expecting a text or new snap from her asking what I'm up to.
The day after she passed, I came up with an idea for a tattoo. Having the pain tolerance of a guppy and lack of funds for such things, I'd ruled tattoos out of the question. But that night, I saw a quote that just stuck with me. It stuck itself to me like a needle to a thumb and I couldn't shake the feeling it gave me.
It felt like the answer to the hardest question there is to answer- why do the best people die?
A week after I saw the quote, I went to my friend Devin Warren, who has been a licensed tattoo artist for over ten years. I asked if he'd do it, put down a $20 deposit, and set the date. February 7,2015 I'd have a physical representation of Lee with me forever.
My appointment was at eight o'clock, so naturally I got ready at five thirty. Shaved my legs, blow dried and straightened my hair, makeup. I purposefully skipped mascara. I didn't want it to run all over the place in case I started to cry. I told Curtis I wanted him with me and though he is completely against tattoos, he agreed to come along.
When we got to The Zone, Devin told us the printer they normally use for scripts was broken, so he had to write everything out by hand. I didn't mind, jut meant it had more time put into it.
We got started at 9:00 p.m. Devin started with the lettering, which was the easiest part of the tattoo pain wise. To me, the lettering process felt like when your hand falls asleep and someone pinches you to wake it up- it tingles and is a little uncomfortable, but not awful.
Next, Devin did the outlines for the borders. Again, it felt like a numb hand- until he hit my shin. As soon as that needle went over my shin, I had the hugest urge to jump out of my chair. The bak of my elf was nowhere near as awful as the shin. I was really uncomfortable at this point and needed a distraction, so I facetimed my little sister Alex. I would've facetimed my best friend Mary, but it was close to 3:30 a.m. her time, so that was obviously a no go.
After letting me take a break so I could walk around, it was time for shading.
To those of you that have tattoos, you understand. To those that don't, shading is when the tattoo artist goes in and fills all of the blank space with shadows and color. Remember earlier whenever I was talking about tingling? Shading doesn't tingle. Shading feels exactly like what it is- a series of little needles scribbling across your skin over and over and over. You body naturally starts to swell a little, and the tattoo artist has to go back over the swollen parts to fill in the blanks. The shin felt nowhere near as bad as the back of my leg.Oh my lord. At one point, I asked Devin if we could just stop. It felt that awful.
At eleven thirty, it was done. My quote, with three forget-me-not blooms around it with swirly borders. It's perfect. Absolutely perfect.
I bought tattoo goo, which I apply three to four times a day to help it heal. It comes in a little circular tin, looks like green grapes and smells very strongly of lavender.
I love it. I love the swirls of the letters and the baby blue in the flowers. I love it and I loved her.
I'll speak to you again soon guys.
Sincerely,
D
No comments:
Post a Comment