Women do silly things all in the name of love. But before we go there, let me begin with my first tattoo experience.
I have two tattoos. Not bad right? I got my first tattoo the minute I turned 18. I may have been almost 18 but close enough. I had been thinking about what I wanted. I was a huge Looney Tunes fan, Tweety Bird specifically. I thought, perfect! I’m small and cute with a big head, I’ll get that! In the city I grew up in, there was a local tattoo artist that used to tattoo everyone. His name was Rangoon Ricky (I think. Close if that isn’t right).Older guy, and kind of weird.
If you’re a regular reader of my blogs then you know how religious my family is, so y’all already know I was on a sneak sneak hush hush mission to get my first tattoo. I walked in nervous as hell. Showed him what I wanted, he drew it up, and we began. I took it like a G! I it didn’t hurt and I was super excited! I now had Tweety, in full color tattooed on my ankle!
Here is where it went left, I went home with my ankle wrapped up. Walked in the door and she was waiting, my mama! She had this weird look on her face. She said, “hey Jazmine, where were you?” I replied with some lie because why would I tell Jesus a.k.a my mama where I had been? She asked me again and I knew something was up! I lied again. She hit me with, “you know I hate a liar and God does too” (insert deer in headlight eyes here). Y’all I was nervous and sweating. Well, my then best friends’s mom had driven by the tattoo parlor and saw my car. What did she do? Called my damn mama! I got a speech and scriptures to read. Adding insult to injury, about a week after getting my tattoo, I learned that I was allergic to ink and it became infected. My mama said it was God 😂.
Fast forward several years later. I was married and had four children. My marriage was in trouble but I was still in love. To show my loyalty what did I do? Y’all know…I got his name tattooed! 🤦🏾♀️ Not just his first name y’all, I got Mrs. xxx and the last name to boot! Now I used to be quick to talk about a female that would tattoo a dudes name on her body, but I was married! Well that was my justification. I couldn’t even say that I was young and dumb because I was a full grown adult! Y’all remember I said I was allergic to ink right? Well I was told I was allergic to the colored ink and to try black. Well I did just that and guess what? For the first few weeks, it was cool. I thought I had found the trick. About week three, it was swollen and nasty. It eventually healed but not long after, I was filing for divorce! There’s a bigger lesson here, but I’ll save that for another blog.
Here I was divorced and tattooed with with a mans name that I was 1)no longer with and 2)no longer liked! I entered another relationship with the tattoo. It took a while to disclose my secret, but it was “lovingly” referred to as the mark of the beast 😂. I don’t regret much, but this was definitely a regret and a painful lesson, literally. Y’all are probably wondering if I still have the tattoo? Unfortunately, yes. Wanted it covered, but you know that small ink allergy, so it will have to be removed by laser. Think twice before permanently inking your body with something you’ll regret later!
Until next time…💛