Painful Joy

Body art may look cool, unique and interesting to uninked majority. But for those whose skin with one or  few tattoos especially those who created their skins like wall papers- it wasn’t a fun ride at all.

It’s a known fact that tattoos hurt. Oh yes, they do.  If you do it just for the heck of it or seriously establishing your personal statement-it still gives excruciating pain regardless.

Tat ( short for tattoo) are permanent ink curved on your skin for life. Thanks to modern technology that laser tattoo removal machines  are now available which can erase tattoos any way you want. This makes it easier for tat lovers to rectify or redesign  or retouch old tat or simple leave the skin spot good as new. But still I wouldn’t recommend you to tattoo your lover’s or husband’s or wife’s name on it. They’re not as permanent as tat.

All things considered, those who wish to have their skin inked permanently should give a careful thought of what design they would put on their skin that should be worth the pain. Unfortunately, some people are sloppy with their choice of tat having misspelled words like “Love you’re life”, “ To young to die”, “Tomarrow never knows” a few among other hilarious skin messages. Obviously, if these messages passed the approval of the tat artists, then it makes me wonder do they all have the same English teacher?

Mine is written in Chinese characters so I’m free of English grammar correction. This officially mean “Strong woman “ or “Woman of Strength.” I researched through the internet and sought the translation of my Chinese friends not one but three of them to tell me the meaning in English. And they all replied the same.  As I was told by my Chinese friend, one wrong stroke would mean different in Chinese, so I painstakingly gave instructions to the artist to do exactly the same on the picture to avoid writing the word of “Straw Woman” instead of “Strong Woman.”

Because once it’s there. It’s there forever.

The question is why did I choose “Woman of Strength” as a personal message? Well, simply because I am.  I thrived, survived and braved life’s challenges in the last couple of years. I thought I was knocked down for some time but as resilient as I am, I always get back on my feet in no time.

I pride myself with the fact that I rose up and faced off my personal battles gracefully ( though Christ who gives me strength.)

My tat is my personal self affirmation that steel like character is what I am made of. Yes, the process of sticking tat needle for a good 45 minutes hurt especially when shading (plus the nerve racking sound of the machine made me imagine those serial killer who torture their victims in the movies- didn’t help at all.) So the pain went through my skin during and after the tattooing process. But as the tat artist did his skin craftsmanship on me while I lay on my stomach, I realized that this is just physical pain. And not even a smidgen close to the emotional and psychological pain I’ve learned through my past life experiences. So to my mind, if I was able to make it through those tumultuous moments of my life, then a painful work of art is a piece of cake.

I emerged a winner to life’s battles and passed with flying colors predominantly gold for triumph and success and orange for optimism. As I got up the tattoo table, oblivious of the pain of the sore reddish spot on my back, all I saw was a brilliant work of art. I mustered a smile  and all I could utter was

 “It’s beautiful!” And the work of art is done.