My next tattoo was really like my first tattoo because it was my first "real" big one that was more than just black words. And this one took three hours too instead of twenty minutes. I remember going to get it late one afternoon on an off day like Sunday or something. There aren't a lot of people in the shop and the guy who did my tattoo was a cool young guy with a shaved head and black-plastic rimmed glasses. I had brought in my actual Anatomy & Physiology textbook from my Nursing School days at the University of Tennessee. I opened to the Cardiac System Introduction and showed him the detailed & enlarged drawing of the human heart with every muscle and vesicles and vein and connective tissue. From that alone he got to work on my arm. No drawing it up beforehand, it really would have been too hard to draw it up that detailed and it wouldn't have been organic on my arm either. I was really happy how he did it. He was truly one of the greatest tattoo artists I have ever witnessed. He freestyled that heart perfectly onto my arm. Perfectly. He tweaked in minute ways a couple of things but they were so slight and he did it in amazing ways. Like where I had a mole or birthmark he would turn it into a little defect of the heart or a part of one of the arteries or veins. It is truly unique to me. Around the outside, going all the way around my arm, is a ring of thorns. Thorns holding my heart right there on my sleeve as if it had literally been ripped out and strapped to my upper arm with the thorny branches of the rose. Perfectly me, what more could I ask for? I felt like this was me in every way, in the truest way. Like this was my soul-tattoo, or spirit-tattoo, like the one that was always chosen and destined for me. Although the back part of the ring of thorns, across the back of my upper arm, hurt more than any other tattoo I have ever gotten. Something about the nerves in that spot, but I teared up bad uncontrollably for the ten or so minutes he was finishing that part. I was glad to get that part done.
Even the colors are shaded to match the flow of blood and oxygenation, and you can see all the matching parts and muscles. By now the color has faded a little but I kind of like it. It has that worn look almost, like it's a part of me, but to me that makes it all the more perfect. When people ask me about my favorite tattoo or why I get them or really anything at all the first thing my mind goes to is this single tattoo. It's the one. The one that means the most to me, because to me it just is me. I wear my heart on my sleeve in every aspect: I'm honest to a fault, I put my everything into all I do, I always speak my mind and stand up for my beliefs and I open myself up to vulnerability and real pain and growth. This is me and it always will be. Everyone will know it too, but again that's just part of why it is what it is. This one means the most, this one is the most me. To me it was almost as if I were taking that painful sensation you get in your chest when you feel like you've been hurt because you're too vulnerable or exposed and giving it an actual face, a place to be. A reminder and a reservoir for the oncoming pain and heartache that will always come. I wanted, and got, a reminder of that heartache and that at every moment it was already on its way for more and I had better just always be ready. That's ok though, that's who I am; who I always will be. ☠❤️💔
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