The meaning behind my tattoos

Hi everyone!!

I hope everyone is doing well this week. Personally, I just got back from a week-long vacation with my family. We had such a fantastic time, and it was so nice to take some time away and just be surrounded by those that I love. But now I’m back, feeling refreshed and reenergized, and ready to get back to posting!

Those who know me may know that I actually have a few tattoos. For some reason, this is a surprising fact to some people. But I actually love tattoos so much! They’re an interesting and visual way for people to express themselves. I also love to think of them as artistic time capsules, as they capture one’s interests or meaningful aspects of their life at the time of getting them.

Personally, I have 3 tattoos. Small ones, granted, but each filled with a great deal of meaning. I thought it’d be fun to show each one and give a little backstory as to the meaning behind them. So let’s get into it!

If we’re going through tattoos, we might as well start with my very first one. This one is definitely the smallest of the ones that I have. In fact, I am not exaggerating when I say it took the artist under a minute to finish it!

Of course, like all my other tattoos, there’s a story behind it. I can’t quite remember how or why it started, but sometime during my Junior or Senior year of high school, I started drawing a little cross on my wrist every single day. Just a little reminder to myself that was always there. I’d use a pen, a marker, just anything that was near me. I still have pictures of myself with my little hand-drawn cross in my high school and college years.

I started the joke that once I turned 18, I’d get it tattooed permanently on my wrist since it was basically already on my skin all the time. Over time, it transformed from a joke into something I actually wanted to do. And so, in March of 2017, I got my first tattoo.

It didn’t hurt really at all when I got it. I was more focused on how weird the vibration from the needle felt. I called it my “test” tattoo at the time. If I could handle the pain and liked how it turned out, then I’d get more. I think it’s obvious that the answer to both of those was a resounding yes!

I got my second tattoo 8 months later, in November of 2017. Aesthetically, this one is actually my favorite. At the same time, it’s the perfect example of a tattoo that serves as a time capsule for something that was important to me at the time, but is now the type of tattoo that I wouldn’t get nowadays. And honestly, that’s a huge reason that I love it.

You might’ve seen in my most recent post that I talked about some of my favorite YouTubers. In that post, I mentioned the creator Jacksepticeye, or Sean. Now, I was a huge fan of his channel in college. He and his content ended up comforting me during some hard times in my life. After a year of watching his channel, I wanted to get a tattoo to commemorate him and his channel.

I went back and forth on this tattoo for a very long time. I thought about getting his logo, but in the end, decided on something more subtle. One of his mottos at the time, both in a joking and serious fashion, was “I believe in you.” And so, I decided on that for my commemorative tattoo.

It also lives as a reminder to me that there is always someone out there who believes in me, even if I don’t believe in myself. And, like I said, it’s a time capsule into something that meant a lot to me at one point in my life.

And now, for my last tattoo. This one is actually my favorite overall out of all of my tattoos. It’s actually another derivative from Sean’s channel, but with an entirely different meaning. It’s less of a commemoration to the platform itself, but rather a message from Sean that I’ve taken on as a reminder to myself.

It’s meaning isn’t obvious to those around me. It’s the letters PMA, which stand for Positive Mental Attitude, in Sean’s handwriting.

I got this tattoo in July of 2018. Now, late 2017 and early 2018 were some fairly dark times for me. Coincidentally, they were also hard times for Sean. He was very open about this, and stated that he was going to strive to have a positive mental attitude going forward.

PMA is just a reminder to always look ahead. It’s a reminder that, if you’re having a bad day, that’s okay, because bad times don’t last forever. There will always be good times in life to look forward to, good times in life that are worth waiting for. Essentially, PMA is just a reminder to stay positive through the bad times. Not to be mistaken with forcing yourself to be happy, but rather with just remembering that bad times will happen, but so will the good times.

This struck a chord in me, as taking on this mindset really helped to pull me out of my dark mindset. Having that reminder in my life really helped me, and became a motto that I carried close to my heart. So, I decided to get it as a tattoo as a permanent reminder.

And that’s it! Those are all of my tattoos. As you can see, they’re all very small and simple, but I love them all. They all hold so much meaning to me, and I’m thrilled to have them all.

I have plans to get more in the future, one of which is a much more detailed piece than what I currently have. Maybe I’ll do a little update post whenever I get that one.

Anyway, thanks for reading friends! Please share any and all tattoos that you guys have! I always love hearing the stories behind tattoos, whether they’re silly or serious, detailed or not.

See you all next week!