Week 52 of my comfort zone challenge – a tattoo.

Had you have spoken to me in the other 23 years of my life, I honestly would have told you I would never get a tattoo. It’s something I’ve never been interested in. I never really understood why people would want something permanently on them that didn’t really mean anything to them.

That, however, all changed as I’ve embarked on this year. To be honest, it was only in the last couple of months I warmed to the idea of getting one. You’ll notice at the beginning I set the rule “nothing that effects my personal appearance”. Well here I am sitting here having broken that rule. It took 10 months to decide to break this rule, but the thought of having a permanent reminder of this year, is something I actually wanted.

So having overcome the fear of getting one, the question now was what to get? This was easy… Simply, the quote that inspired this whole blog. “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone”. The positioning of the tattoo was a tricky one in my mind. I wanted to be able to show it off, but I wanted something I could hide at the same time. The arm felt like the most obvious place.

The getting the tattoo itself was quite a funny experience… In a tattoo parlour where you could barely stand without hitting your head, the experience was rather quick. The tattoo artist shaved my forearm and began to draw on the font. For 15 minutes, it felt like a cat (ironically the artists name was Katja) was scratching me. I actually found the pain really annoying. How people sit there for 5 hours getting tattoos, I’m not sure.

As quick as that, there it is, this quote that will sit on my forearm for the rest of my life. Safely healed and with a ridiculous shaved patch on my arm, I sit here with a stamp that will forever remind me to live outside my comfort zone. Some people, including myself, laugh at the thought of me having a tattoo, but I’ve grown to like it. It means something to me, which is something I never understood until now.