I DID IT!!!

And the pain was totally worth it! (However, I will NOT become one of those people who gets addicted to getting tattoos. That's just sick.)

I had psyched myself up for it all day and walking in the door I was like, "Yeah! I'm gonna do this! Bring on the pain!" Then I had to wait an hour for him to finish with someone else (yes, we had appointments) and I lost all my psych. lol

Four of us from work went together. There were five but Caleb found out his wait was going to be a really long time and said he was sorry but he had things he had to get done. He's planning to go back soon for his. And he was gonna be my foot buddy. :)

Best way to describe the pain? It feels like 8 needles are being stuck into your skin!

Imagine that!

In this picture are Rashinda (far left), Dottie (far right) and some lady who I don't know. lol She was there to get a piercing I think and came to talk to Matt (my tattoo guy) and struck up a converstion. Super nice lady. Dottie was so cute, trying to talk to me about letterboxing to distract me (because I got her started on it) but I seriously could not even carry on a conversation because I was focusing on breathing through the pain! How sad am I. :)



Matt working on the outline... This part hurt the worst. The top of my foot started to numb a little and that pain I was able to tolerate but as soon as he moved over to the edge I was coming off my seat. It is TENDER there!



Starting in on the shading...



Ta-da!



(My toes look ridiculously long in this picture. Sorry if you have a foot phobia.)

The amazing part? It took TEN MINUTES! It was over so fast. But even still, it's not a pain I want to duplicate.

The meaning of this tattoo is really special to me. It's Arabic for "dance". I've been thinking about it for about three years and a little over a year ago I had a friend from Saudi Arabia design it for me. I chose my foot because what better place to put the word dance? And also because I wanted to be a little bit original and didn't want one on my lower back or shoulder blade or anything like that. I'm EXTREMELY happy with the way it turned out.

A few years ago I started viewing my relationship with Jesus Christ as a dance. I wrote an essay about it for a creative writing class that I took and the idea of dancing with Jesus became very special to me. (Look up the song "Dance With Me" by Evan Earwicker - it also ties in.)

I always knew that if I was going to get a tattoo I would get something very important to me and something that held a lot of meaning. This is something that will ALWAYS hold meaning to me because the Dance I am in is a lifelong one.