Tattooed Me - Life After Corporate America

9 years ago, my new boyfriend and I found ourselves down in Key West for a last minute weekend getaway. I ended up getting a small butterfly tattoo square on my back. It was a spontaneous decision, I was 22 and had always wanted a tattoo...but I never acted on that desire because I wasn't sure how I felt about marking myself forever...

I immediately loved the tattoo. It symbolized everything I felt at the moment: I was going through some life-changing events at that time, and this beautiful butterfly meant something to me. I was taking flight, spreading my wings - all of the usual cliches.

Over the years, I'd sometimes forget that I had this tattoo. I would change my clothes and catch a glimpse of it in the mirror and I would be started for a moment. Or someone would see it and gasp - "You have a TATTOO?"

A few years ago, while in Key West with my husband, he got a tattoo at the same tattoo parlor. He decided to pass on the butterfly and went with a tribal-style dragon. I got the itch to get tattooed again, but I knew I'd have a hard time finding what I wanted. I already had an idea in mind: a dragon stretched out across my shoulders, to symbolize inner strength. Since my teen years, I'd always seen dragons as a symbol of strength and referred to my inner-strength as my dragon (yeah, goofy, I know). But I didn't want just any dragon. I wanted a dragon with feathered wings - again, the flight concept. I'm all about freedom...

Fast forward to March 2010, when I resigned from my job to begin a new path in life. I see this as a sort of rebirth. Thus, that dragon evolved in my mind into a Phoenix. I found a beautiful design online and started calculating how big a tattoo I could afford. Once my mind was made up, I had the money budgeted, and my husband was all on board that I'd be getting the next tattoo, I had to find an artist. I'd been in Tattoos by Lou in 2009 asking about a design and was met with some pretty raunchy attitude. So they were immediately stricken from my choices. A friend recommended an artist that she knew personally, and the rest is history.

I sat for the artist for about 4 ½ hours straight, and yes, it was painful. But, oh, so worth it. It feels right. I wear it with pride, this is a symbol of who I am, what I am about...