**Although not at all graphic, this post might be TMI if you're the sensitive sort, so avoid it if need be. ;)
My second tattoo came quite a bit later. I was probably almost 32. (Wow. I can't believe I went that long without getting more tattoos. It is probably because I was generally quite broke!) I was married (to the aforementioned bar-working-boyfriend that I was afraid to see again in the My First Tattoo Story) and we had been married probably 8, maybe 9 years by then. We had five kids and had lost our house to black mold.
We loaded our five kids up and we were living on the road in a converted Greyhound bus. I painted at motorcycle rallies for our income, and we explored the country whilst traveling between rallies. We hit 36 states that first year! I painted murals on motorcycles, painted on leather coats and whatnot as well as etching on windshields. It paid really well most of the time, but weather was a big factor.
That year we were in Florida at a rally, maybe Daytona Bike week, maybe not. I can’t remember where exactly, but it was raining like someone upstairs was just dumping state size buckets of water down on our heads in a never ending deluge. I kept my painting supplies in plastic tubs for easier transport and they would literally float away from me while I tried to paint on the few bikes that had braved the storms and relentless rain.
This is the type of stuff I painted for people:
This 'theme' will show up in a future tattoo as well! This was my husband's leather jacket that I painted on during a slow period at a rally.
Needless to say, there weren’t many customers at all. I was making NO money and the tattoo artist at the rally wasn’t doing much either. At some point we got to talking and decided that I would paint and give him one of my leather vests that I had in stock and he would trade it for a tattoo for me. His nickname was Scorpio or something like that, so I painted a scorpion on the vest, as well as his two daughters names. I may have done something else with the daughters’ names, but I can’t remember now.
I spent some of my down time designing the tattoo that I wanted. This one definitely signified my relationship at the time. Not the sweet “mommy daddy” side of the relationship, but the other side that’s kind of hard to keep alive when you have five kids… if you know what I mean. (If you don’t know what I mean, you should probably just skip the rest of the post, because you probably won’t get it) ;)
We had an interesting dynamic at the time and had for a couple of years. I may someday write a completely NSFW post, but let me just say that we spiced up things at home that took the ‘boring’ out of our alone time. This tattoo was a symbol of that side of things. A reminder, I suppose, that parenting doesn’t mean you’re no longer an independent human being with needs, wants and passions outside of the day to day grind of parenting a lot of wee children.
The placement? That oh so maligned "Tramp Stamp"... but such a nice sexy spot at the same time. At least for someone. I never get to see it. :/
The “Thorny” part of the design was more to signify the fact that our relationship was not all sunshine and roses. There were definitely really difficult parts and days/weeks/months when we weren’t sure we’d make it through to the other side still feeling sane. But we had. We were stronger for it and still a work in progress.
The “His” on the tattoo was because my husband said at the time that he didn’t need his Name imprinted on me. “His” was just fine, since he knew who it was referring to. I put it there, not because I felt like he ‘owned’ me so much as we were just… one. He was mine and I was His.
The ‘lock’ part of the tattoo was supposed to be filled in, but I couldn’t decide between just filling it in solidly or putting the ‘safe, sane & consensual’ symbol there. I left it out “for the time being” and never did end up finishing it. That alone is very telling of my personality. I have far too many things in life that I haven’t finished. (Including another one of my tattoos!)
*Here is me at a rally after the tattoo, etching on someone's windshield. I assume it must have been hot. I'm always bad at dressing in actual normal people clothes... *
So… there you have it. A somewhat vague telling of the story of my second tattoo.
Other posts of mine that you may be interested in:
My Real Life Stories:
My First Tattoo (and other stupid decisions)
The Christmas that Almost Wasn’t (Broke Ass Parenting Win)
Living the Storm (a small story from our life on a sailboat)
My Most Popular Fiction/Writing Challenge Thus Far: For the Love of Tulips
