While getting most of my tattoos through the years, I have given short explanations of why I got certain designs on me.
I quickly realised Instagram was not a good place to share things, such a negative atmosphere; Youtube also wasn’t an option for me, too much exposure. But now I have this blog, and I trust you are here because you want to read my posts and overall hang around, chat with me and share your opinions on the topics I select.
I was asked plenty of times to share the meaning behind my tattoos, but to be completely honest some of them are just so personal that I haven’t event told some of the closest people in my life about their true meanings – I usually just say I wanted them because I liked them, when really to me, there is a lot more behind those drawings.
And so after something that happened last night, I’m ready to open up a bit and talk about some of them. I won’t go through all of them, because I have many and most of them are explained on Instagram or some YT videos – I will focus on some of the most personal ones, which I never talked about before.
BUT before I get into that, I need to get this off my chest: remember that beret I blogged about last nigh?
In the post, I did mention that I knew someone would get the wrong idea, and I was prepared for people to complain about me wearing it. Nobody on my blog did (and that’s why I feel like this is a safe place for me – you just get me – I don’t need to explain myself) but on Instagram people went cray cray. I was called rude because someone who is not socially considered “ugly” should not wear something like that, that the word might be triggering for people and cause them to loose confidence over it; that I should take more responsibility and not post something like that because someone might get offended; that I was careless… and that went on and on.
Well, I was attacked as if I never had any insecurities.
The truth is, I did. I still do. Everybody does. Everybody struggles with things, and I don’t think it’s fair for someone to assume you don’t, and stop you from expressing yourself, in any way that could be.
It’s no secret that growing up I was very insecure about my body: all the girls in school started to develop, and I had no meat on me. All the clothes were too big, boys made fun of me for not having curves, girls teased me as well – and worse of all – teachers and grown ups did so too.
I remember one time in high school, my class and a few others were on a school trip, and while on the bus, I heard some people had some candy and chocolate they were sharing around. I asked if I could get some as well, but for some reason, to my teacher, that registered as a cry for help: the bus stops, everybody goes silent. She comes towards me with a sandwich saying I needed to eat it – in front of all these people – as if I has some kind of disorder. Other parents and teachers kept calling home asking if I did have eating problems (which I never ever did) and the situation was just so embarrassing to me, making me feel like something had to be wrong.
This is just one of the things I had to deal with. So when I wear that beret, I see it as an achievement. Because I wish that when I was younger I had the confidence to wear it and laugh about people’s opinions about me and not let them influence me so deeply. They don’t change who I am, they don’t help me in any way, and so I learnt to love my body instead and let people talk.
To this day, I’m proud to have built up my confidence and that beret symbolises how I worked through my insecurities and I now accept my flaws.
So there you go, instead of seeing everything so negatively, some people should try to pause for a second and try to get a different prospective on things.
It’s a cute hat, no harm is meant from me wearing it.
I’m pretty sure that if I go out on the street and people read what’s written on it, they will simply get a laugh out of it – nobody would ever stop me, saying I’m offending them.
But then again, we all know the internet is very strongly opinionated about all kinds of things.
OKAY. Sorry about that, thanks for letting me get it all out.
Now let’s get into my tattoos, which is probably the reason why you are still here!
I decided to write about them on the same post because they do relate to this subject, as some of my arm tattoos are actually little achievements of mine.
Let’s begin with the more obvious one, the “shy” tattoo.
I got it last year, after realising how much progress I made in opening up to people and pushing myself to do things I wanted to do but had always been to afraid to even try. And we are talking simple things, like going to the grocery store alone, talking to a stranger on the street, making new friends.
A few years ago I had such troubles doing anything that I just closed myself inside the house; I would see nobody other than Felix. It was a dark period, I thought I was going to have to see someone about it, but then something changed, and I got out of it.
So by writing shy on my arm I can always remember that although my entire life I have been incredibly shy, I’m okay with it, because it’s a trait of my personality and it isn’t in the way of me achieving things in life. I will always be shy, but I can deal with it better now, and I actually like how being this way allows me to develop other characteristics, like listening and observing. Just because I’m quiet
it doesn’t mean I don’t have opinions, or I’m not interested, or I don’t want to be a part of something – I do, but in my own way.
But this topic brings me to the next tattoo: “La casa sulla luna”, which translated is “The house on the moon”.
This refers to my social anxiety: once again, you know I struggle with it, and it used to be really really bad. This sentence comes from one of my favourite books, “We Have Always Lived in the Castle”, where the protagonist, after going through a tragedy, can never leave the house without feeling observed and judged by people.
If you have social anxiety you know that feeling very well: as soon as you leave your safe place, it feels like everybody is staring at you, and you just want to hide from the world.
In the story, the girl would imagine her safe place in her head (the house on the moon) while being outside, just so that thought could be somewhat comforting to her. And so I tried it myself, I would think about it as well while leaving the house, or when I was in uncomfortable situations, and it helped me greatly.
That’s why it’s on my body, it’s a constant reminder that I can do it, it’s all in my head, and if I think about positive things instead of letting my dark thoughts come to mind, everything will be fine.
The final tattoo for today, is the “twig” one.
This is related to my body image. As I previously stated, growing up I felt awkward about my body, no matter how much I tried to eat I could not gain enough weight to look like the other girls. But now I cherish my body – although I constantly get comments on how skinny I am (even if I’m not THAT skinny anymore), on how I should eat a burger, on how I have no boobs and butt – I love it the way it is and I would change nothing about it. And so that fragile twig represents me, and it reminds me that everything has its own beauty.
So that’s it, I think I shared enough for today! I need to point out that in no way I’m saying you should get tattooed as well, I enjoy the look of them and I consider them to be an art form, but I know lots of people disagree.
This isn’t supposed to be a sad post or anything like that, but rather a reminder of how nobody should ever assume things about others, and most importantly, that our own flaws make us who we are, and we should embrace them and see the positive rather than focusing on the negative. That’s always my message.
Thank you for reading this super long post, Marzia.
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