Seeing as I might have a midlife crisis any time now, let’s talk about: Tattoos!

@Nickiquote
There was a time I considered getting one or more, but couldn’t decide on just one. Tattoos are like potato chips. You can’t stop at one, and I didn’t want to end up like The Illustrated Woman covered in tattoos. I collected silver charms instead for symbols of things important to me. My charm bracelet got heavy!

@Nickiquote Got one in my 40s. Love it. I want one more, but I know a lot more now about tattoo ink and how it ends up in the lymphatic system which gives me pause.

Also, my husband and kids don't particularly approve. I managed to hide the first one from my kids for a few months, and when I got busted my eldest said "It just hurts that you *hid* it from us, Mom!"

@Nickiquote got my first tattoo at 46, during the First Covid Summer when everything seemed pretty fucked anyway

@Nickiquote I got two at 20, covered those two with other ones in my early 30s, and got a third one in my mid-30s.

then I turned 40 and have gotten 15 since (less than three years).

I highly recommend this kind of midlife crisis.

@Nickiquote I got my fourth and largest at the age of 48. The only thing I regret about earlier ones is not being bolder and getting bigger ones.

@pikesley @Nickiquote Got my first at 47, last year. Definitely planning more.

@Nickiquote I have four now and will be getting at least one more this year. Would recommend

@Nickiquote I have one, will most likely get another. Both Jen-related.

@Nickiquote Never had the tiniest interest in having one. Not that I'm in any way one of those anti-tattoo people. It just feels to me like running a marathon: I accept and understand that some people really want that, and it's in no way a bad thing, but I would never be even slightly that way inclined.

@Nickiquote if you can get to East London, I can recommend A Guy

@Nickiquote This pole made me think of Lydia The Tattooed Lady
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVBBxptpSY8

@Nickiquote Don't have any yet. Slowly collecting reference images for one that I want to get in a few years' time.

@Nickiquote I was ink free until 2019, I now have almost 20, through I haven't gotten any new tattoos in almost 3 years. No regrets. I love turning pain into beauty, and the pain really doesn't last long, though I do have a strong tolerance for pain. It's artwork, many of my artists have been close friends, I have a row of different cacti, my symbol for resilience, each different from their hands to mine. I have a Sak Yant, a Thai blessing down my spine. I have the word *home* tattooed on my sternum, twice, one facing outward so that others know this is my home, and the other upside down so that I can look down and remember that I am always home in my body. Both of my thighs are now pieces of art from an artist I traveled to see. All of them are blessings, points of remembrance, beauty forever.

What do you want to get? Before or after this life crisis? #tattoo #tattoos

@MamaLake I don’t know what I’d like really. I was just thinking that I always thought it was something I’d never do, and now my attitude is more, why not?

@Nickiquote yeah, so why not? What thoughts stop you?

@Nickiquote

(Of course that's me in my profile pic/gif. My midlife crisis was having my torso and back tattooed befor 50.)

@Nickiquote I'm not cool enough to get one.

@Nickiquote I've got 36, I think.

@MamaLake I used to think that I would go off it and I’d have it forever, but now I realise forever isn’t that long any more…

@pikesley @Rob_T_Firefly @Nickiquote oh whew. Tattoos