Matching Tattoos + Taking the Leap
“I've gotta go first, because if you go first, I'll bitch out."
Those were the literal words I said to my best friend, right before I hopped up onto the table to get my very first tattoo. I'm nothing if not honest.
We've been talking about getting matching tattoos for ages. We have so many good (as well as some questionable) ideas – our wifi password from the year we lived together, something commemorating our cats, or maybe matching denim jackets? When we finally settled on an idea that we loved, I asked her to choose a tattoo artist. (Which is funny, because of the two of us, I'm the type A planner and she's more go with the flow. Also she lives in Scotland lol)
But last year she got tatted UP. Like, tattoos up both of her legs, ankle to hip. (She looks SO cool.) And I had ~zero~ tattoos, so I figured she would have more wisdom about it than I did. 🦉 I sent her some of my favorite local artists on Instagram to help her in her search, and let her take care of the rest.
Lowkey though, I thought this might be like all the other times we'd talked about getting matching tattoos and maybe it just wouldn't happen. I kinda like talking about it just as much, if not more, than I like following through. 😇 Also I was a little scared if I'm being honest!!! But we did it!
We actually, finally did it. And as we were waiting for our artist to print out the stencils I just kept saying, “I'm so chill. Super chill. I feel great. So relaxed. So chill. Never been more chill.” Which… is not very convincing.
But sometimes you have to hype yourself up, or tell yourself that you're chill 500 times, to follow through with the thing you know you wanna do but your brain is overcomplicating and overthinking. 😵💫
At the end of the day, we got our matching fish tattoos and I'm completely obsessed with them. And having that experience reminded me of the biggest hurdle to booking a boudoir session…
…not just telling me in our Instagram DMs that you want to do it, but actually following through.
Eeep! That’s the biggest hurdle you'll jump. Not showing up and actually knocking on my door, not shimmying out of your clothes and changing into your first outfit, and not trying to feel and look relaxed when your brain is all like do my hands look normal right now?!!? (Though I know all of those things are hurdles too – all of which I'll help you with and walk you through. You're never doing anything alone when you work with me.)
But actually saying, “okay I can do this,” even if you don't feel ready, taking a breath, and hopping onto the metaphorical tattoo table.
And when we're done, just like me after that tattoo, you'll probably say to yourself, “Yanno, that wasn't as bad as I thought it would be! Maybe I actually… liked it? Maybe I wanna… do it again?”
