Behind You (gxg)

Author's Note

When I first considered getting my best friend's art tattooed on my back I was terrified. The tattooing process would be easy as it wasn't my first one; although it would be the largest artwork. For once, size didn't matter. Content was the fear factor in this equation.

When I was in Grade 10 in a class that both mattered and didn't, my best friend did what she always did. She doodled. She would go through black ink like plants drinking rain water. Okay, maybe not that intense, but she finished pens off pretty quick. She was doing what any person would do when bored in class. She doodled this intense and terrifying looking artwork. Me, being in the typical teen emotional phase took one look at it and burst into tears. It was the most vulnerable, beautiful, frightening, truthful mirror I had ever looked into. It was so brutally honest that I didn't know how to handle it. I was looking into the depths of my own demons.

I couldn't seem to shake off the haunting feeling that I had gotten from the impactful artwork, and while my best friend thought I was completely mad, I knew that the next few years would be an overwhelming exhilarating adventure. I don't care how long of a sentence that was.

Going backwards by a year or so, I started high school a week late. Due to missing work my teacher asked this girl with the big hair and long dark lashes to let me borrow her notes. I don't think I even looked at the notes once. Who cared. But what caught my eye was the artwork that framed the pages. The spirals and intricate line work blew me away. When I later returned the material to this girl, I told her that her artwork is incredible. She said it was just some random doodles and tried to brush off the compliment.

We've been best friends for almost a decade now.

Fast forwarding to around the time of completion of my third year of post secondary education. I had asked my father to go by the only tattoo parlour in our town to see how much it would cost to get the "tear-jerker-vulnerable-demon" artwork tattooed. It just so happened that my dad went with my grandma who was visiting from the other side of the world. What an experience that must have been for everyone in that tattoo parlour. In walks a moustached kind of bulky man with a shorter almost limping wide older woman. Priceless.

Anyhow, I had it all planned out, but the idea of having that demonic artwork tattooed on my body terrified me. That year had not been kind to me, and it wouldn't get easier for a while after either. I remember trying to come to terms with what it would mean to have something so vulnerable etched permanently onto my body. It would be my third tattoo, equally as important, but it carried its own type of weight.

Although I wouldn't be able to see it as it would be on my back, I would always know that it's there. It would always remind me of what I have carried and still carry. It is weighted. Correction, it has great value.

I imagined that by etching the demons externally that maybe it would help remove them from my insides. That I could use it like my wings. That I could lessen the ache inside.

The tattoo hurt like a bitch.

It was a pain like no other, where crying would be pointless and telling the tattoo artist to stop would be silly. It was a pain that you just had to bear with. Nothing new there.

On my left was the movie Deadpool playing, on my right, was a skinny dude getting a trash tattoo on his chest. Some eagle piece just for the fun of it. While laughing at the movie was problematic, watching and hearing the other dude yell "OW MY NIPPLES" didn't help me avoid laughing and moving while getting my back piece done. It was definitely an experience.

But I couldn't be happier when the tattoo was finished. Not only did I have a beautiful original masterpiece etched onto my back, but I had felt more confident in myself. It was surreal. And bussing to my best friend's house to show her was just as surreal. I remember us sitting on the curb near some lame plaza and just saying how we couldn't believe that I actually got her art permanently done on my back. Years later we still can't believe it sometimes. She means the world to me. Our friendship means everything to me. And I would not be here if it were not for her.

Art brings people together. Even the scary, the honest, the too vulnerable reflections. I am honoured to carry her artwork with me.

This story will take this experience, this artwork, this vulnerability, and use it to hopefully create something just as meaningful. The human with the back of a demon. The one who not only faced demons, but was also able to turn their back on them and keep going forward.