Spontaneous Doesn’t Have to Mean Scary
By: Behind The Tattoo
Tags: Tattoo, Spontaneity, Flowers

Erin’s flower tattoo

“Don’t get a tattoo, you’re just going to regret it one day” is a phrase heard by probably everyone who has so much as thought about getting a tattoo in their lifetime. Even if you’ve researched, planned, and thought for weeks or even months about it, this phrase will probably still linger in your mind forever. For some, getting a tattoo can be a scary and possibly regrettable decision, but sometimes it’s best to just bite the bullet and do it. My friend Erin can attest to this.

Freshman year of college is often a time for teenagers to experience their first real taste of freedom without their parents hovering over every decision. Erin decided to channel this freedom into getting a tattoo. For months, she would scour Pinterest for designs that called out to her, but she always remained indecisive. Finally, she came across a picture of a flower that stood out among the rest; it was clean and simple, with black lines forming an almost geometric pattern. Erin finally had this idea set in her head-but still couldn’t commit.

Another rite of college passing is having your friends from home come and visit. One day in the spring semester of freshman year, Erin’s friends from her high school cross country team were coming to Salem. I was washing my dishes in the sink on the ground floor of my building when she came to introduce me to them. We talked excitedly while I was elbows deep in bubbles and water. “What are you guys thinking of doing today?” I asked Erin. “Well…I think I’m going to get a tattoo.” I stopped washing and looked up at her, asking her an abundance of questions about the process. Erin just shrugged it off, “I’m just gonna go for it!” she exclaimed.

Later that day Erin walked into the first tattoo parlor with an opening and got the flower tattooed on her forearm. While she basically defied every rule in the book for your first tattoo, (extensively researching parlors, consulting with an artist before hand, etc.) I have never seen someone so happy with their decision. I later asked her what her tattoo meant and she readily described how, even though the decision to get it was spontaneous, the meaning was not:

“I got it because of mistakes I’ve made, to remind me that I’m not perfect and that’s ok. Flowers grow and so will I, because even when winter comes and flowers die, they always come back. Just like they always come back, I can come back and learn from my mistakes, too.”

Spontaneous tattoos are probably the most vilified out of them all. People seem to believe that this split second decision will be someone’s biggest regret, a permanent burden they will have to carry with them, a significant mistake. However, I push you to take Erin’s tattoo story into consideration whenever you think this. She took what people would consider a mistake, and made it into something that helps her LEARN from her mistakes, essentially flipping the stereotypical narrative of spontaneous tattoos on its head. And while there is no guarantee that forty years down the line she will still feel the same way, it doesn’t matter- because by then she will have grown, changed, and learned more, much like the tattoo that sits on her arm.