Blog #6

I grew up wanting tattoos. I always thought it was super cool how people could mark their bodies with images or words and have it with them for the rest of their lives. I was fascinated with the decision-making process. How does one choose which image or phrase gets to live on their skin for what seems like an eternity? I had also heard that tattoos were addictive. Once you get your first one, it’s hard to stop. There were a few boys at my high school who had tattoos, but it wasn’t until I was about to start college that I actually began to think about getting one. My best friend and I talked about what we were going to get all summer and made plans to potentially get matching ones. I went on a road trip with another good friend and we designed our matching tattoos. A lot of my summer was spent thinking about tattoos or coming up with ideas for ones.

When I first got to Northeastern and joined the women’s rugby team, I remember being surprised by how many people had tattoos. There were girls with partial sleeves, a few tattoos here and there on their arms or backs or chests, and many had at least one. Some of the older girls had the outline of our mascot tattooed on them. I was awestruck. It was then that another rookie and I decided to get tattoos together. She texted me on a Monday night asking if I wanted to get tatted that upcoming Thursday. I said “sure, why not?”. We mapped out our T stops and were very excited about it. We decided not to tell anyone on the team until we had gotten it so that it would be a surprise. It was quite a challenge to keep from telling people at practice that week. Wednesday night came around and I had no idea what I wanted to get tattooed. All of my summer tattoo ideas were great, but they were too big or unrealistic for a first tattoo. So I had to think of something new. That previous weekend I had been to the MFA and had seen a list of Latin phrases and their definitions. I even took a picture of one. It was the phrase in this photo that I decided to get tatted on me.

I thought I might regret it because it was a last-minute idea that would stay on my skin forever. So, I figured that as long as I had some fun with it- it could always be a joke. I decided to have the font of the phrase be in 12-point Times New Roman as funny, modern take on Latin. I’m not sure why I found this amusing, but I did. Thursday came and I went after class and met up with my friend to take the T to the tattoo parlor. We arrived and were getting ready to be inked up in a matter of minutes. I thought it would hurt more than it did, mostly just tickled, but I began to see how it got addicting. I was pleased with the work and paid an arm and a leg for it, at least from a broke college kid’s perspective. I would get another tattoo and already have two planned for the immediate future, I guess I’m an addict now.