I see the looks I get every once and a while from strangers on the street. Some people judge me, I know they do. I'm 21! I'm not supposed to have tattoos out where people can see them! I'm about to graduate college, how am I going to get a respectable job or have anyone take me seriously? It all comes with the age old question: "But what if you regret it someday?"
I got my first tattoo when I was 18 years old. I'd wanted it for ages, but was always too afraid it would hurt an unbearable amount, even if it was super small. It was, too. Just some simple song lyrics. Eventually I gave in and got it done, and it was over before I knew it. And I was so, so happy I'd done it. People were still quietly disapproving sometimes. My first tattoo at 18, on my forearm where it was hard to cover up. They assumed it was something I hadn't been thinking about for years, something that didn't have personal meaning to me. But it did. I wouldn't have done it otherwise.
My other tattoos are less personal. If you have tattoos, you might know what it's like. Once you have one, it's hard to stop. They're an addiction. I love them and continue to get them because they're my favorite art form. I can think of no better way to express yourself than to permanently show it on your body. I wish other people saw it that way.
I have five tattoos currently. Six on a technicality. The next one I got was a fox on my back, based on a t-shirt design I loved. It reminds me to face my fears. I have two on my opposite forearm, based on a Wes Anderson film and a Quentin Tarantino film. They are the start of a half sleeve i'm planning of tattoos referencing films I love, since I want to work in the film industry. I went back and got color and a background added to my first tattoo. It's a bit of a spectacle now, but it's beautiful.
The tattoo I always laugh about, though, is my infamous goldfish. I can trace the rest of my tattoos back to some personal meaning, but my little fish friend was really just a spur of the moment thing. The tattoo shop I regular had a day where you could go in and get a pre-drawn tattoo for $50. How could I, a tattoo lover, pass that up? So I went in blind that day and somehow came out with my favorite tattoo of all.
When people ask if I think I'll regret my tattoos, I always answer with a maybe. Because I can't say for sure if a few years down the road I'll think getting a tattoo of a goldfish was stupid, or if I'll get denied a job because of them. But in the moment I am getting tattooed, they mean something to me, and I can't regret that. I can't regret the way something makes me feel in the here and the now. Hopefully, 50 years in the future I will be able to look back and think about what it was like to be 21 and in love with this beautiful art. It's permanent, but that's what makes it so important. Because it's part of me.
