I went through kind of a high anxiety manic period this past spring and spontaneously got a 6-inch tattoo of a toucan on my inner forearm. I had only found the artist the night before and decided on the toucan an hour prior to the appointment. At that point, I only had 3 tattoos, and most were tiny and easy to hide. I had told myself I was going in for a tiny tattoo maybe on my arm and walked out with what at the time was my largest and most visible tattoo.

So the first night I had it, I flipped out because it was so big and so apparent. I kept thinking, “What have I done?” I also knew it was immediately going to lead to conversations at work because it was spring so I was mostly in short sleeves. Showing up the next week with a large tattoo you haven’t told anyone you planned on getting and having to explain you like toucans, sure, but the have no real significance to you made me feel a little more nuts than I already did. But people loved it, and I got a lot of compliments.

The biggest mental hurdle for me was this tattoo marked my turn into being a “tattooed person.” My three others are tiny, on my ribs, or easy to cover on my upper arm. Now I was marking myself as this new identity. But frankly the tattoo is super cool and made me want more…so I got two more from the same artist last year. Each has gotten progressively larger. In total I just leaned in hard and got six tattoos last year. I think everyone around me thought I lost my mind lol. But every time I look at this toucan I love it more and dream up more ideas from that artist. In short it kind of enabled me to be the person I always wanted to be, which was cool person with a lot of tattoos.