A couple weeks ago I got my first tattoo! I'm so excited. I absolutely love it: how it turned out, the symbolism I put into it, and the fact that it's my own artwork on my body.
And here's what my design means:
Lilies are my favorite flower, and this one's a bit tattered. It's still pretty and alive, however scarred. That's me. I've survived a bunch of crap, but I'm still here. I'm all the better for it too.
The thorny vine is life. It's not an easy thing to deal with and it will hurt at times. I just noticed that I sort of drew the three vines in a triskel. For those that don't know, a triskel is a celtic symbol for birth, life, and death.
The angel wing is death (naturally). It's for all the past deaths in my life as well as the future deaths I'll have to endure. Grim, yes, but still very important. And you can't have life without death, which is why the vine winds around it, I suppose.
"We'll carry on" is a My Chemical Romance lyric from the song Welcome to the Black Parade (if you didn't know already). More recently, this means to me that I'm able to life my life as normally as anyone and I'm happy for the time I had with my dog. It also means that I can move past everything else.....being suicidal, being severely depressed, even just possibly failing a class.
Even the placement has a symbolic meaning. I want this tattoo on the outside of my left shoulder. For one, that's the side your heart's on. For some reason, all the scars I get from being clumsy is on my left side. The left side is the only side my cat likes being held on (odd I know). It'd be on my shoulder because I'm putting so much of my self into designing this tattoo, so it's like I'm putting my heart on my sleeve. I'm a really emotional person, but I don't know how to express myself unless I'm writing (like now). People can't usually read my expressions and I don't know how to talk about them, so I tend to talk to people in lyrics and quotes. This tattoo, as I said, symbolizes everything that's important to me, so it'd be another way for me to let people know about me. If it's on my shoulder, I know people will see it.