Braved the Pain

Who says Friday the 13th has to be unlucky? 

While other people in the world dealt with their irrational fear of the superstitious date, I decided to make it transformation day.

 I've had mixed feelings about getting my second sock done. Not because I didn't know what I wanted, or didn't look forward to it's beauty. My fear was aggravating the nerve pain that I've battled since I broke one of my metatarsals almost 2 years ago. It randomly radiates down my foot and through my toes, less now than before, but often still makes a nasty appearance after I've worked a few nights in a row. 

I decided to suck it up and go for it. That's what I did when I registered that for the half marathon while knowing it would be a battle with my knee pain and everything worked out in the end, right? Sometimes you just have to brave the pain to earn a gain. 

I've known exactly what I wanted for some time now, I just needed Germ to help me fit it all together in a fluid design. I think he was probably wishing he had someone to help him put it together in a design, because I literally laid on that table sweating bullets, with my foot as a canvas for 4 hours before the drawing and erasing came to a halt. After all, I can't do anything simply, and I presented him with a highly difficult project, knowing he is a talented enough artist to pull it off. Every artist needs a solid challenge every now and then, right?

1. Waves as the main focus. No one ever does that, I was informed; water is usually used as a fill in. Instead of trying to convince me to do something else, he kept at the drawing board until he was happy with the design.

2. Incorporating a snow flake into the scheme. So many snow flakes come out flat, or dull.....but we found a way to give it interest. Creating it using negative space (like with my starry night on my right foot, so the two feet will have a common artistic style).

3. To cover up my Caduceus. Not that I don't like it anymore. I do, it has special meaning to me, but it is in an extremely odd position, and more often than not, people just recognize it as a Doctor's symbol instead of representing the medical profession in itself. 

4. I wanted all of this on my foot. I guess it's a tad obvious that the foot is not the most flat or symmetrical of extremities. If that one factor isn't enough to deal with, certain parts of the foot don't hold ink well due to the nature of the skin, so the art has to flow around that.

Meaning:

For as long as I can remember, water has been a huge part of my life. I grew up on the river, never went a summer without spending hours at the lake, spent my honeymoon, and the year after, listening to the waves of the ocean, and couldn't live through a Texas summer if I didn't constantly stay submerged in agua. It is one of my lifelines.

There are many meanings to a Lotus Flower/Water Lily, all of which are positive beliefs, surrounding purity and beauty. It remains clean and vibrant, even in dirty ponds. And I take it as a duty to myself to always stay positive and smiling, vibrant as the lotus, no mater how murky the waters in life may get. Eventually a new tide will come. Oh, and did I mention I would die without the water, just as the water lily?

My snowflake has so many memories behind it. Not only is snow beautiful, every flake special and unique, it falls abundantly in the mountains.....where I was engaged.....where I spent so many family vacations......where I long to live. It's made of water, and it's tied to my happiness. 

Germ was, gingerly put, pressed for time......considering how many hours he spent just perfecting the design of my foot sleeve, AKA "sock", so he could only complete the outline work. (I guess it was an "unlucky day" for all his clients that got their appointment times pushed back a few hours at the last minute, on a friday night!) It's very abstract as of now, and I'm dying to see the finished result, but patience is a virtue..........so I hear.
I get a great deal of compliments from random strangers on my owl; I know my waves are going to be just as beautiful.
The good news is the 1 hour of needle-work didn't feel half as painful as I feared it would, and I only have a little swelling/bruising to deal with, as opposed to the post result of toughing out 3.5 hours of needle-work in my very first session on my right foot!

Do you have a tattoo? Would you ever consider getting one? Why or why not? If yes.....what would you get?