@goaspirit61 was kind enough to give me a shoutout for my tattoos on his blog recently, so I thought it would be fun to show you an inventory of mine and share the stories behind them.
In this photo you can see the tattoos on my pubic bone/hip and one of my legs. One of the swallows was the very first tattoo I ever got, when I was a teenager. I don't remember which side it was as I got a fair bit of work done when I was still a teen - I can't believe no one cared about ID back then! The tribal heart with wings is my own design and was added a couple of years later, and I had the other swallow added at the same time to balance out the other one. You can tell these tattoos are older because they've faded more than the name on my right hip. (It's a family name I had added a few years ago.)
The writing on my left thigh says 'Mea Maxima Culpa' with a broken heart under it. It's a line from the Confiteor, a Catholic prayer used for confession (it's in Latin). I grew up Catholic and I don't practice now, but for me there is still a lot of eroticism and mysticism in Catholicism. This phrase also comes up in pop culture/regular language now and then. 'Mea culpa' basically means 'my fault' and is an acknowledgment of wrongdoing.
This photo shows off the lip print on my ass. This one has no special meaning - it's just something I got with a friend for fun! It's a little bit trashy, a little bit sassy.
I've posted this photo before, but it's a good shot of my back piece. One the upper part of my back, I have a phoenix spreading its wings, with flames around it. The bottom half of my back is a 'tree of life'. You can't tell unless you look very closely in person, but there are a bunch of animal silhouettes hidden in the bark. There are some stylized clouds around the tree, on my ribs. I've been thinking about getting some blue added to the clouds for years, but never got around to it. I got this tattoo after going through a really difficult time. It's a reminder that I could rise again, even when everything seemed like it had gone to ash.
There's also a really small skull and crossbones hidden in the clouds. I had it done years before the back piece and it was kind of in the way, so the artist just incorporated it.
I still have some other tattoos to tell you about, but I'm going to save them for my next post so this doesn't get too long.
If you have tattoos or have been thinking about getting a new one, I'd love to hear about it!
