When Illusion Becomes A Reality: The Completion Of My Six Year Tattoo

I will level with you reader, I thought about quitting after my last six hour tattoo session, not necessarily because the pain was too much, although, don’t get me wrong,  it did hurt, quite a bit actually, but no, because my luck has been so good thus far.  My tattoo looked amazing as is, everything has always gone so amazingly well, the tattoo session, the healing process, did I really want to risk a potential catastrophe? Before every session I felt a bit like I was playing a game of Russian roulette and my body was the punching back or maybe pincushion would be the better adjective although I did feel like I was being punched every single time.

When we left Black Cobra Tattoo shop in August, Matt showed me what he was thinking for the completion of my homage to Friday Kahlo.  A floating Frida with a mirror for a face on my inner forearm and this ghost like floating skeleton that is in one of her paintings on my outer forearm. Unfortunately for me I always have trouble visualizing how it would ultimately look on my skin.  I smiled pleasantly enough and pushed the worry to another day because my next appointment wasn’t even going to be unitl November.

I put off emailing him my ideas for the new part of my tattoo until about two weeks before my designated appointment.  I didn’t really want another Frida Kahlo on my inner forearm, her mere presence as a Catrina already being so formidable and beautifully displayed on my upper arm.  I didn’t want to take away from all of that.  I told him that in so many words though email of course and then expressed how I still loved the ghost  skeleton, but what I loved more than anything else was the painting of her spine being held together by what looks to be a steel rod and a brace, one of my ultimate favorite Frida paintings. I really feel like it sums up the many aspects of what made her Frida. This idea that she portrayed a completely different version of herself than what was going on underneath the surface is so very real to me.  If you don’t already know, Frida suffered chronic pain the majority of her life.  She had polio as a child, which caused one leg to become thinner than the other and then she was in a horrific trolley car accident where an iron handrail impaled her abdomen and uterus and then there was her marriage to Diego Rivera, the womanizing, but altogether brilliant painter and muralist. He flaunted his affairs in front of her and the public, but she seemed to always hold it together despite everything. Maintained a commendable composure, had her own fun, but kept it hidden behind closed doors. She outwardly appeared one way, but was a collage of something that some would say was altogether different. 

These are the pictures that I sent Matt.

It is to be noted that I didn’t want boobs on my arm, but I have always liked the cat and the monkey painting, having a black cat myself and I love the hummingbird necklace as well. I wanted this all implemented somehow, someway, but had no idea in the how and the way of it all.

I waited with bated breath after I sent the email.  Were my ideas too boring, didn’t present the challenge an artist of his caliber would need?  Was he annoyed that I wanted to change what he had already worked on to something else? Will he break up with me?  Flatly refuse to tattoo the girl who word vomits and doesn’t see his art for what it is, brilliant, because she keeps on changing her mind. Or maybe he will go through with the whole visit because he feels like he has to finish the job that he had started six years ago, but he will hate every minute of it.  

He did reply in a few days with a simple “Got it” and I will have you know that did not relieve any of my anxiety.

The day of my tattoo finally arrived.  I was a bundle of nerves, mainly because I had not had further communication with Matt, but that has always been the case.  I send him images, he replies with a thumbs up or a got it, and then I show up for my appointment and he presents me with his ideas.  And if I base the end result on statistics, I have been blown away 100% of the time.

You can see the fear in my eyes here. We showed up five minutes early and then had to go through the whole waiting in the car, trying to control my breathing, my heart rate, rehearsing in my head what I’m going to say when I enter the shop, thing. If you have anxiety you know what I’m talking about.

I could tell Matt didn’t look that excited with this final part of my arm tattoo or that might have been my anxious brain overreacting again, which kind of took over the whole conversation, in my mind anyways.  All I could do was nervously smile along as G gave him some other ideas that he actually seemed really excited about, much to my relief.  Why is it that I’m worried about how everyone else in the room feels, when I’m the one getting permanent ink on my body?  I wish I was different.  I wish I could express my opinions in a sharp, snappy way, but all I can ever do is smile through a grimace or two. Matt went back to his office to draw up something else, something that he later told me was his favorite part of my whole tattoo, and I was elated with that omission like I had done something to deserve it. This latest part in particular is where he allowed his creative brain to do what it does best, create and in an original way no less, so I shouldn’t be that surprised that he loved it the most. He put together my two favorite Frida paintings in a collaborative mashup. And who doesn’t love a good mashup?

The whole previous week I wholeheartedly believed that the worst of the pain was behind me.  I looked at my arm, there really wasn’t even that much space to tattoo anymore.  This will be pretty painless, I naively thought.  My shoulder was bad, near my armpit worse and I suffered and came out stronger for it.  I had gotten a smaller tattoo on my inner forearm years ago and it didn’t hurt at all.  This will be a piece of cake I thought. Oh how wrong I was. I have noticed that when I think something is going to be easy, it never is.  I think part of it was the delicate line work around my wrist and the shading, oh so much shading. The pain was unmatched, lasted for seven hours, made me start to question my life choices, begin to make promises to myself  that I will never do this again, who actually would want this anyway, but I will have you know it was totally one thousand percent worth it.  Here are some pictures of the process.

The pain now lives in my brain like a distant foggy memory.

I go back in the spring to get some of the old parts touched up a bit.  I have to stop myself from thinking the worst part is over; this won’t hurt at all, because I know the fallacy in that.  It will probably hurt the worst and I will prepare myself for that when the time comes, but for now I have this new art on my arm, and this tribute to a woman who defied society.  I may not be as bold or as brave or as beautiful as I wish myself to be, but she was and maybe through osmosis or some other kind of witchery her essence will be instilled upon me in some shape, some way.  Or maybe just looking at the different versions of her will be all the reminder I need that no one is really what they seem, not really.  We are all just different versions of what we want to be, hope to be, may one day grow into being and that’s really ok isn’t it, for what is life without a little bit of growth even if it’s not linear, but circulatory, wavy, and most of the time very very confusing.