THE GIFTD

About a year ago, confid3ntial gave me a book somebody had left in his office. I scoffed at the title and wrote it off as a chick book that had gotten mad props purely because it was on Oprah. I take it all back…After a nightmare month, I needed some light bedtime reading and decided to pick it up and give it a go.

Eat.Pray.Love ranks in my book-list as one of THE best books I’ve ever read. It sounds cheesy but I had a few “AHA” moments reading the book…it completely changed my perspective on life and living life. There are a lot of stand out moments in the book including one that Jenna highlighted on our trip to Tokyo, the other was a paragraph on Happiness.

“Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You have to fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it.
You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings.
And once you achieve a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it… It’s easy enough to pray when you’re in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainments.”


I read the paragraph OVER and OVER again.I’m not religious definitely more spiritual…but felt like I had an epiphany. So what the hell has this got to do with a tattoo? Well, I’ve always wanted one but never had the balls to do it. I’m pretty fussy about things and the thought of having something on my body that I might wake up one day and hate, was a definite buzz kill. However after reading the book and re-contemplating life and how I live it, I knew that I wanted a reminder of it’s significance with me permanently.

I put the idea to the back of my mind and obviously being “fussy” meant there was no design I could even contemplate – that was until I came across the fantastic and exquisite giver of hand jobs work (Creative Review’s very own words) Alison Carmichael.
Her infamous C*nt poster and Clean Me work is absolutely STUNNING. I’d finally found the visual I was looking for. I had a consultation with Rodrigo Melo at North Star tattoo who came highly recommended (and is positively amazing) and the rest is now history.







I’d just like to give a MASSIVE thanks to Rodrigo + North Star Tattoo and of course Wes and Joe who both helped craft the work of art that’s on my wrists. One last thing…if anyone tells you that the pain on the wrists isn’t “that bad”. THEY ARE LYING. Never in my life have I ever experienced such pain.NEVER. Although there were no tears and I took it like a trooper, it’s definitely not something I’ll be looking to experience again!!!