Kyla Roma » Blog Archive » To be a dragon: my tattoo story

To be a dragon: my tattoo story

22 February 2010 | Beauty & Bodies, Her Life, Things to swear by, oh, forever ago

Six years in a private junior high and high school was definitely interesting. My school was progressive, secular and high pressure. It hung on the British structure, from uniforms and boarding to being put in one of four “houses” when you were admitted. My graduating class was unprecedentedly large at a whopping thirty five girls, and my time inside its gates were wild. They were everything you would imagine and more. We worked two grade levels ahead of other schools in most subjects and the implication was clear: this is a gift from your parents, so get the scholarships they paid for.

It was tribal and claustrophobic in the way only family can be, and as you can imagine that kind of an environment bakes rebellion into your system. So when I graduated, I did what you might expect: I took a year off to regroup, broke up with my awful high school boyfriend, cut off my hair, pierced my nose and started stretching my ears to a zero gauge.

I didn’t want to be a girl from That School and I didn’t want to go to school with Those Girls. I needed a clean slate, and if I couldn’t bring myself to move away I would be a new version of me. Only the new version of me was just as shaky and uncertain as the old version, and just as confused.

I don’t know how many people end up having their mom beg them to get tattooed, but mine did. My mom is crazy and wonderful, definitely not your normal mom. She got it into her mind that what would knock all of this rebellion out of my nineteen year old system was simple: I just needed to get a tattoo.

I started pulling together ideas and trying to find something that had meaning to me, that wouldn’t be trendy or strange when I was an old woman. I thought about the year that had put me in this strange and upset state. It had been so difficult I was nearly pulled apart.

I found out that I’d been repeatedly cheated on by my boyfriend of two years, who had spent the previous six month constantly accusing me of being unfaithful. He’d started telling me who I was allowed to see and who I wasn’t, in so many words. He was making threats. I was afraid of him and deeply sad all the time, but finally had the courage to break up with him. He retaliated by making up awful stories about things “I’d said” about my friends, until I had no friends left and was almost completely without support. He started following me, showing up at my house at all hours of the day and night, showing up at my friend’s houses, at restaurants when I was out to dinner. He was always sitting in the background to let me know he knew where I was. My phone rang all the time, and he would show up at my mom’s house, screaming and pounding on the door until we had to call the police. I was rocked by panic attacks constantly, and was eventually diagnosed with a completely out of control panic disorder that paralyzed me to the point of not wanting to leave the house.

It was months and months of heartache followed by months and months of fear. I became a paper shell of a person who might blow away or burst into flames at any moment. My mom looked into my eyes and told me we would get a restraining order, a therapist, and a tattoo*. And in the mean time she would make me some tea.

I tried to find an image that would reinforce everything I knew I needed to become: strength after being broken, peace after being afraid.

I’ve always been hypnotized by koi fish. I could stay at a pond for hours peering into their funny faces and looking at their sleek, beautiful bodies. They grow to be so large and so old, always wrapped up in the hush of underwater.

I took Japanese at school until I was in grade eight, and in their legends the strongest koi fish can swim upstream against anything. Eventually it swims to the top of a waterfall where it leaps into the air, and in the mist is transformed into a dragon. When I was nineteen I knew that I needed to be a dragon girl, no matter how scary that process would be. I knew I could make a decision about who I wanted to be: the nervous girl at the back of the room, or someone whose happiness radiated out through their every motion and word. I could be someone joyful and unapologetic if I worked on myself every single day for as long as I could see into the future.

This May I’m turning twenty five, and I’m closer to being that girl than I ever could have imagined. In a couple of weeks I’m meeting to talk to my artist about another piece (this time on my shoulder, the chronic pain in my back is too bad to have this built on) to celebrate how far I’ve come.

Every now and then I think about what these drawings on my body will look like when I’m an old woman. Will I still like them? Will they still be me? But when I get to the heart of it, I’m not worried.

They wil be perfect because they are a part of me. An old and creaky, belly laughing dragon girl is still a dragon, after all.

{get a closer look here & here}

*While I spoke with the police a number of times, I was too anxious and overwhelmed to go through with getting a restraining order, and I can’t tell you how many times I wish I had gone through with it. Talking myself out of what my therapist and the police recommended was another part of justifying my boyfriend’s behaviour. If you are in an abusive situation, please seek the help and the protection you need to feel safe.

95 comments

Janie

This was such a beautiful, inspiring and interesting post to read. Thank you.
.-= Janie´s last blog ..Techless Monster Girl =-.

To be a dragon: my tattoo story

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