the 'getting drunk tattoos' general series of events

The king of cliché "coming of age" moments that I’ve been brainwashed into following in the footsteps of has got to be one of the most expensive decision making moves you can make in your "i'm a teen adult" phase. Tattoos.

Just before I joined the twenty club, there was one irreplaceable night of entertainment that involved bus stop benches, the search for sangria, a weirdly fascinating wall, and a challenge from a bartender. Picture a 'little too green' working girl, lanyard around her neck, walking aimlessly around the city because you can't actually arrive to dinner with your friends on time or it'll make you look like you were anxiously waiting for them to not show up. It's the middle of winter so by the time I'm done with work the sky is almost charcoal and the jacket I wore was for aesthetic purposes only so walking up and down the train station tunnel was the only way to both calm my nerves and remain warm. 

Calming nerves was a redundant exercise, I'd known these girls for basically my whole life so showing up 20 minutes before our booking and demanding to look busy eyeing out the cheapest cocktail was the literal definition of my behaviour, but why not change it up eh? This is a young girl in the city we are talking about so if I don't mention the creepy guy who kept finding bus stop benches closer and closer to my own once I figured physical exercise was a childish choice, did I even go outside at night? Fitting was the murder case I was listening intently about, the usual "girl who's five minutes away from home" story with the terrible ending. Seeing him get to the closest bench to mine was good a reason as any to suck it up and sit at the table by myself with three cocktails ordered (and all a little bit taste tested). I see fairy floss, gummy bears and a single kernel of popcorn floating in a paper gondola. 

We have all come to the conclusion by the time that we have each had one serving of all aforementioned concoctions that I'm destined to be with the boy I have a crush on because I didn't blink an eye about switching my phone time from 12 to 24 hour view to show off my disregard of norms and could describe the iris of his eye like I was staring at a photograph. Sappiness would fuel the night. All in love with the world and with each other for having an entire 24 hours free of checking off to do lists at the same time off, falling in love with the wall outside our restaurant wasn't a completely odd sensation. I can't remember exactly why we fancied it so much but the appeal must've shot us like a cupids arrow because we spent an hour in front of it being 'candid' to the ultimate point of 'cliche'. 

All that was coming out of our mouths was a cheer for fruity red wine, or as any sophisticated drinker would refer to as sangria. The colour of something we walked past sounds like the thing that could of set us on our course, but alas, our journey did not lead us to wine. Instead, at a wholesome establishment and one of the last customers of the night, a fancy bartender depicted our personalities in a cocktail all the while I was going on a wild goose chase for my wallet. What would divert our attention again was the sleeve of intricate stencils uniformed to look like a colouring book waiting for a 5 year old to devour. The story of the how and why and when didn't matter as much as the way it fit all together, as if it was a puzzle the body didn't know need solving. While his tattoos spoke culture and wisdom, his mouth spoke cocky. A hint of "you'll never do it" and a sprinkle of "gotta finish what I started" egged us on to the dodgiest parlour that stayed open until 4am and get us included in the colouring book series. 

My mind was set from the second we walked in. A biker looking fella and his scrawny assistant took the pen out of my drunk and shaky hand to write out a line of morse code that no one could tell me was corny or too small. "take it slow" branded above my ribs, breaking the seal of skin for it to ooze with a mix of blood and black. The second addition was the definition of 'white girls out to get drunk tattoos' as they COME! I'm talking the meme about girls getting stenciled iconography in the same place to brandish their friendship beyond the course of time. I learnt a lot about this guys life, why he became a tattoo artist and what kind of music his band plays and funny stories of grown men crying at the sight of the needle. It was a wholesome change of scenery from the cocky sleeve who dared us to just do it. By the time we were under a roof with a clean mirror showing off our bandaged bravery, the sky screamed with the sun.

I learnt a lot about things that night. As drunk and childish and naive as I see I was, it took a few measly hours to say my fears out aloud, to admit to the heart that it already knew what it wanted, to remember the reason I love the smell of fresh, crisp air that you breathe in at 2am, and to always remember to bring more than enough cash when there's more than one popcorn gondola involved in the decision making process of a night. 

Much love xx