Filling Space: A Reflection on Tattoos

A few days ago, I got a bougainvillea tattoo that I had been wanting for a while. It was my fourth tattoo, and it's filled up most of the empty space on my left upper arm. I had been wanting to fill that gap for a while; my latest tattoo before that was a guava branch I had gotten last August, and while I loved it, I also thought the spacing looked awkward from a front angle. From the side, you could get a fuller sense of the artwork, but from the front, all you could see was a stem and a couple of leaves. It looked incomplete.

I don't subscribe to the mentality that all tattoos must have meaning, but it's so much easier to justify them to myself if they do. So far, all the plants I've gotten tattooed are ones that are in my backyard at home -- the pomegranate trees I can see from my bedroom, the lilies lining our side yard, guavas ready to be eaten right off the tree, and bougainvilleas growing over white concrete walls.

When I was in high school, I never imagined I would ever get even a singular tattoo. I can't pin down exactly when that changed, but whenever it did, it was drastic. I didn't start small. My pomegranate tattoo was my first, a custom piece about four inches long, featuring four flowers and three fruits. There was no going back after that. Within the next eight months, I had two more decently sized tattoos.

Even though the empty space on my arm had been bothering me for the past year, I also feel a subtle resignation now that it's finally filled. I love my new tattoo -- artistically, it might be my favorite I've gotten yet. And I also think it's such an honor to have someone else's artwork, that they created and stylized just for me, on my body forever. But it's also like a certain chapter has been closed, the possibilities of what could fill that space are no more.

I guess I do get overly sentimental about tattoos. Every time I get one (especially the last two, which are in quite visible spots), I feel a slight shift in my identity. There is a sense of euphoria that I am becoming more outwardly expressive of the person I have always been inside, but there is also an uncertainty and even shame -- what if I am pretending to be someone I'm not?

Subtle digs from others ("I just would never be able to decide on something to have on my skin forever," "My parents would never let me," "I'm waiting 'til I'm older so I can have a secure career") would have sent a past version of myself spiraling. Am I rash, reckless, hedonistic, even? Do I care so much about indulging my current wants that I've disregarded the practicalities of my future?

Then I remember what I am spiraling about, and I laugh. I'm this worried over pieces of artwork that took months of research, planning, saving up, and anticipation, while instead, I should be appreciating them. I'm extremely lucky to have always lived in places where, even if I feel some judgement, it hasn't been outright unsafe for me to express these different aspects about myself. Even though I have to hide my tattoos from my extended family, I feel so grateful to have a mom who accepts me as I am. Weirdly, at the same time, my first instinct is still to hide my tattoos from her. Maybe that's because her first instinct is to scrunch her nose and tell me, in a didactic tone, how I shouldn't make all my life-altering decisions this young, but she also tells me she can't be mad because it's my body, and doesn't bring it up again. While that seems like a low bar, many of my friends have told me how terrified they are to get tattoos because of their parents, and I empathize. I don't know how I ended up so lucky. When I was four, my mom let me start dressing myself because "children are individuals too." I'm sure that played a part in my willingness to so frivolously decorate my limbs now, as an adult.

I don't want to hyper-focus on the way that I look. I grew up doing competitive dance, which led me to overanalyze every inch of my body when I compared myself to other girls my age. While I can gladly say I no longer let this mindset run my life, I was jarred when my first insecure thought post- new tattoo was Am I ugly now??? I'm trying not to care, not to sort myself into harmful categories like that. I certainly don't assess others by those standards. Feeling insecurity creep in scares me, though, because I wonder if it's a sign that I'm not acting as my truest self. I'm worried that means I'm back to my fourteen-year-old self, who made a tremendous effort to blend in with my peers and did everything I could to seem demure, respectable, and go unnoticed. I'm scared of what it means to think that maybe that girl is my truest self, and all my growth since then has been an act.

I don't think I can resolve this, because telling myself that logically this isn't true can't make my doubts disappear. I probably just have to make peace with those weird feelings and then let them go. All I know is I'm happy now, in the moment, and why should I rob myself of that? I had such a tendency to rob myself of joy throughout my teenage years, and that's one thing that I will not let stay with me for the rest of my life.

With teeth, love, and flowers,

Anika

P.S. I want to upload a photo but it is not working... RIP :')