My New Tattoo Experience.

It started one year ago to this day, when I contacted Kim Anh-Nguyen to draw me up a custom tattoo of my wedding flowers with our anniversary date in the bow. I LOVE her style and knew I'd love whatever it was that she came up with. She sent me her design and it took me a loooong time to build up the courage to get the actual tattoo. I already have two small ones from when I was a teenager (they're kind of dumb) so I knew what the pain was going to be like but because they were small, the pain was over before I could really start cringing. 

So last week I miraculously built up the nerve to drop by the tattoo shop to see if the artist I wanted happened to be there available for a walk-in. I knew I'd at least leave with an appointment and that's what ended up happening. Being a walk-in was wishful thinking. I didn't want to have to set an appointment because I would have to stew in my anxiety over the next week leading up to it. Know what I mean?

But anyway, I went in for my appointment last Thursday at 3pm. My heart just about exploded out of my chest - I thought I'd pass out before we even started! Having general anxiety to begin with made me want to run the heck out of there (in a fight or flight situation, I choose flight! I'm good at hiding it I guess), but knowing how bad I wanted this tattoo, and also that it happens to be on my list of 30 before 30, I just sucked it up and went for it. I am so glad I did! Because I love it.

It's still pretty sore and you can see little speckles of blood still in the green colors. Sorry if that's gross!

It took 2 and a half hours to finish and let me just say that I am SO thankful to have been lying on my stomach so I could hide my cringing face in the table! I would have been so embarrassed if people saw my face because there were 2 other guys in there getting work done sitting up all calmly and facing in my direction. How can anyone NOT cringe?! lol! The outline wasn't as bad as the coloring. At parts, the outline didn't even really hurt but felt more like a burning. But towards the end of the coloring, I was literally clutching onto my hoodie and squeezing my fists to keep from crying out.

Now, quite possibly the best part of this whole experience was the expression on my husband's face when I showed him the tattoo. I never told him I was going to get it! I showed him the design months before so he knew what it looked like, but I never mentioned that I was going at all that week and he had no idea. So when he came home from work, he had read the note I left that said, "I'll be back soon. I went to get something. It's a surprise." When I came home he goes, "so what did you get?" And I pulled up my jean leg and he's like "OOOH MY GOD!!" and was laughing and in total shock. I was like "SURPRISE!" I totally got the reaction I was looking for :)