Sam started talking about tattoos a year ago and I said I would get one with her. We would randomly send each other idea, or talk about it…
I don’t remember if it was before or after her first hospitalization. but I said we are DEFINITELY getting a tattoo and she agreed.
She started a Pinterest board.
We would talk about it again a little more seriously.
After seeing all the traditional “mom and daughter” ideas, one of us said something about a moon and sun. Sam said, you are the moon and I’m the sun.
And I agreed! She is my sun, and I’m always the moon.
She wanted to get it on the last day of the year but we were busy and it didn’t work out. So, then we agreed on the FIRST day of the year.
But most of the shops were closed 🙂
Then it was… definitely, the SECOND day of the year and WHAT TIME would I be available? 🙂 I looked up the top rated tattoo shops and they had walk-ins so away we went. At this point, she was so eager to get these tattoos!
The cost seemed to have doubled since I got my first tattoo five years ago, but it was worth every penny.
Our tattoo artist, Tamara, was a little gruff. I was absolutely picky and made her reposition it once. I wanted it next to my compass and it would have been SO CUTE to connect them with a few more stars but 1) I saw Sam’s version and the lines were very different from my compass and it would have bugged the heck out of me to have different colors/lines and not have it match so I quickly switched over to my other arm, which 2) matched Sam’s anyway. It’s nicer to match. I probably would have been sad to not match.
Sam was definitely stronger than I was. I swear she has a high pain tolerance, she’s just scared of the pain. It was not bad, just a hard tickle as the needle vibrated on my skin, but still stung. Although Sam had a good poker face, she was squeezing my hand and making me pierce her skin with my nail. So I was making more faces to make her laugh.
I was very impressed with her distraction capabilities though. When someone asks me to distract them, I completely panic and can’t think of anything to say! She rattled off so many stories, it was awesome.
The second time she did the stencil on me, when it peeled on (or off?) three of the lines on the bottom were creased and not straight. I had to point it out to her. Obviously, I’m sure she would not trace over crooked lines and she PROBABLY would have redone the lines before she started.
As she said, she had been doing this for 10 years.
However. HOWEVER. I had to say it out loud?
I can’t imagine what she said about me after I left (she had a few things to say about the ladies who walked in with the Juicy outfits) but I’m sure she had a few things to say about our Taylor bracelets and ridiculous chatting.
I did give her a larger tip.
But still. Looking at our tattoos fills me with joy and pride. It’s a beautiful reminder of our bond.
Connected by starlight, always.
