📚 How getting a tattoo is like publishing your writing

The Tattoo Chronicles: Personal Stories and Shared Experiences - PART 3

Photo by Jorunn Lorenez

As I walk down the street to my job interview, I see an elderly couple coming my way and notice the lady staring at me with a frown. My mind scrambles, trying to figure out what I have done. Her frown morphs into a full-face look of disgust as we get close. As we pass, I see she is looking at my tattoos; her face sweeps up to mine, and she shakes her head at me.

It isn’t the first time I have experienced negative judgment, but this isn’t a good time for my confidence to be shaken. I pull my sleeves down as I walk into the building for my interview. In the interview, I struggle with words and try to hold my hands in a way that hides my tattoos.

I have never had a problem with tattoos in the workplace. My work ethic has always shone through. Not this time. I didn’t get that job. Now, years on, I know it wasn’t the job for me, knowing where I went instead. But it did shake me.

Photo by Jorunn Lorenez

‘Yes, this is just like publishing my writing,’ I kept thinking as I reflected on my tattoo journey while writing the first two tattoo chronicles; Before getting a tattoo I reflect on this most beautiful question, and My Tattoo Progress Photos & Story.

Pulling that inner world out and putting it on paper or the skin as a tattoo, opens us up to judgment on very personal parts of ourselves. Here are the likenesses I drew;

I am vulnerable here. I am exposing parts of my inner landscape and putting it out into the world for others to see.

As I write, I clarify my inner thoughts and share them as posted articles.

As I am tattooed, I find images representing parts of my inner self and put them on my skin for others to see.

I have to be able to clarify these feelings into pen strokes.

The writer collects and collates, clarifying the message they are working to share with the reader.

The tattoo is about making me more myself.

It is through understanding myself that I can clarify what I want to say in my writing and in the ink I choose for my skin.

Both writing and getting a tattoo ask us to know who we are and why we want to express what we do.

In exposing myself through these public expressions, I open myself to judgment.

Assumptions fly into our heads whether we want them or not. Much work is being done to be mindful of our thoughts and words. But sometimes opinions can hurt, whether intentional or not.

I have found judgment easier (never easy), to receive when I am clear on my motives and boundaries.

Making things public means accepting that opens it for comment.

When I married, a friend told me to expect something to go wrong on the wedding day. They said if you go in thinking it has to be perfect to be perfect, you set yourself up to be disappointed. Knowing that something will most likely go wrong means when it happens, you are better prepared and can work out how to sort it out rather than be caught up in devastation. I found this helpful, and think about writing this way, too, in that negative comments will happen, so when it does, I can make better choices in that moment.

With my tattoos, I can better move on from those shaking their heads, knowing I am not for everyone. Most of these instances are about the stories their life has given them rather than me, for often, it comes from someone who doesn’t know me.

I focus on how sharing creates opportunities for joyful connections.

Through sharing my words and the visibility of my tattoos, I have made new friends and have had wonderful conversations. I love how it opens others up to me and allows us to support each other.

When someone shares that my written words have helped them, it is truly one of my life’s most fulfilling moments.

Writing and tattoos are exposing ventures. Others take views, twist your intention and judge you. Is anyone out there on an easy path? No. We are all struggling and stumbling. I always come back to knowing that kindness is never the wrong choice.

Thanks to each process, writing and tattoos, I have been able to see that we are the gift we seek; we are the gift that we are here to give.

The gift is you…a nourishing poem on that here.