When most people (the general population � not the people who visit this site) think about tattoos, they think it is about someone trying to look "cool." I could see their point of view a little, because it is the case for a percentage of people who get tattooed. This past week I've realized that my tattoo experience has absolutely nothing to do with "looking cool." Shall I explain?
At A Glance Author Shae Contact [email protected] When It just happened
This May (2007) I am going to a Harry Potter conference (yes, an educational symposium about Harry Potter � stop reading now if you can't the dorkiness) in New Orleans. It will be the perfect combination of fan activities, costuming, partying, and lectures and I'm quite excited for it. Long story short, I needed to get a Death Eater tattoo for my arm. I could take one of two routes � I could either get the tattoo done and possibly ruin a shot at my dream job if I ever decide to go back to school or buy the temporary of it. To me, the choice was easy; I simply went online and purchased a few dozen for less than the cost of a tip to the tattoo artist.
A few days later my fake tattoos arrived, and I was excited like it was no one's business. I immediately put one on my arm and showed it off to the family. After happily staring at my arm for a good while and doing my evening things, I went to bed, sad that my tattoo would be gone the next day.
But it wasn't.
It wasn't gone at all. Not the least bit faded, cracked, or showing signs of being a fake. In fact, it looked even more real that day. In the shower I scrubbed at it to no avail. So I went to work with a snake and a skull on my forearm with the story "Damn, I'm stupid, who knew temporary tattoos lasted more than one day?" To my disbelief, everyone knew that already. The entire world knew that temporary tattoos lasted at least a few days and I was the only one who didn't.
The next day it was exactly the same; hardly anything had changed at all. The only signs of wear were a few missing connecting lines on the top of the skull. Again, I went to work and expressed my disbelief at the temporary lasting as long as it had. After work, I actually had a few things to do before going home. I needed to go to the fabric store to buy some items for costumes I'm working on. As I was walking through the store, I could feel everyone's eyes on my arm.
I felt like a fraud.
I wanted to scream out, "It isn't real!! Stop staring!" It looked real and it looked "cool" but I felt like such an imposter for wearing it. Then I realized, it isn't what they think about it, it is what I think about it. I was driving my own self crazy by the fact that I didn't really have it inked on my skin. It made me feel empty.
For some reason, it reminds me of giving a dog one of those bacon looking treats. They look like bacon and they smell like bacon, but they aren't really bacon. The death eater tattoo looked like a tattoo and felt like a tattoo, but it wasn't really a tattoo. Just like giving a dog a fake bacon treat, the fake tattoo was cruel and unusual punishment.
And again, just like the fake bacon doesn't fool dogs, I wasn't fooled by the fake tattoo. It was different and I could tell. I may be slightly crazy, but I always feel like I can "feel" my tattoos rooted into me at that point in my body. That is how I decide where a tattoo goes � where does it feel like going? Where it is destined to be? I felt where the tattoo should be, but instead there was a fake in that sacred spot. It became strikingly obvious to me that it isn't about looking "cool" at all. Everyone else could see me as some badass chick with a skull on my arm, but I was nothing more than a kid with a sticker.
So while a lot of people think that getting tattoos is just about looking cool and following a trend, it definitely isn't. This bizarre experience really made me think of yet another reason why I love getting and having tattoos as much as I do. Those without tattoos will say something like, "Well that is better, isn't it? It'll eventually go away and you didn't have to go through the pain of getting it done." But it isn't better. I like to go through the process of getting nervous, relaxing as the tattoo is gradually coming together, staring at it constantly after it is done, and then the arduous healing process.
There seem to be no words to express how much I love the art of tattooing, but I know it is definitely not about looking cool to other people and I wish that everyone could see that.
Disclaimer: I just want to put a tiny disclaimer that I am not an expert in being "cool" (couldn't you tell?) or an expert concerning tattoos. I only have my personal experience with them that includes having only 6 of them (with an appt. at the end of April for what I think will be my favorite one). So I consider myself at least partially familiar with them. I am in the middle of day 4, and I'm not really sure why I didn't think of using a chemical like goo gone or that sort of thing to rid myself of the tattoo until now.