The Story Behind My First Tattoo
I didn’t think too long about my first tattoo. I needed it at the time, it was a solution to a particular problem. This is the story behind my “yes”.
***
I was in my first year of University when my dad was diagnosed with Leukaemia. It was a particularly aggressive variety and the doctors didn’t tell us there was very little hope.
At Glasgow University the English Literature MA is a four year course. My dad fought his illness through my first and second years, but during Christmas of my third year we were told his condition was terminal and that he had perhaps three months left. Like all things medical, the timelines weren’t exact, so after a couple of weeks to adjust, I went back to University. We were expecting a decline, and my mum told me she’d let me know if I needed to come home.
As it happened my dad survived for over eight months. It was a heroic effort on his part, fuelled by a tall TBR pile and pure stubbornness.
My dad was the one who really pushed for further education, to the point that I grew up believing I had no other choice. My studies were important, and there wasn’t much question over whether or not I should continue with my course.
Despite this one certainty, we were all in a strange state of limbo and in April I decided to postpone my end of year exams. It’s hard to study when you’re constantly expecting the phone to ring.
When I made the decision, I reasoned that he’d already held on a month more than we’d expected, so the next couple of months would be the time. This would place me squarely in the middle of my exams and I didn’t want to be in the middle of one, unable to answer my phone.
I thought I could put my exams off and take them all at the end of my final year. I could go home for the summer, grieve with my family and face my final year on more certain ground.
My dad finally put his books aside at the end of August.
The day after his funeral I went back to University to start work on my dissertation.
To say that year was difficult would be an understatement. * I changed, fundamentally, as a person. I set myself word goals every week and kept on top of everything no matter what. The reading lists were nuts, but I read a book a day (ish) and managed to keep going. I handed in my dissertation…
...of course a big problem still lay ahead in the form of the usual end of year exams, plus the ones I’d postponed. When the exam timetable finally came in, all of my exams fell within the first week of the six week exam period. This left me two days to prepare for each exam topic, if I started studying the day I handed in my final essay.
All of this was made even more challenging by two factors:
I had been in lectures and tutorials for most of the subjects while distracted by my dad’s impending death, so not best placed to soak-up knowledge.
The reading lists had changed since the year before, so there was a chance the focus of the questions would have shifted.
I took my exams and I poured my heart and soul into an “appeal of special circumstances”. **
When the results came in and I read the words - First Class Honours - I completely crumpled. And then I started smiling for the first time in over a year.
When I was released from that institution into the wide world, all the usual gut kicking commenced in the form of repeated job application refusals.
I wouldn’t rely on my mum financially. I’d been raised to be independent and I’d managed to save a bit from my student loan. I had a very limited buffer and I did my damnedest to get a job. But getting kicked by the real world is one thing if you’ve left Uni with the wind in your sails… it’s another thing when your sails are already reduced to tatters.
One evening, sitting on a train on my way home from yet another interview and feeling thoroughly exhausted and depressed, I did some thinking.
I realised that what I needed was one “yes” from somebody… from anybody. Just one yes. I knew that once I had one, others would follow. But needing to be “given” something so vital from somebody else wouldn’t do. If the last year had taught me anything it was that I had to rely on myself for my success.
Then I realised that I could buy myself my first “yes”. I could award myself that chance and start the cycle of positives that would follow.
I walked into the tattoo shop on my way home from the station and got it done. I think it cost £12 and it’s the best money I’ve ever spent.
I love my “yes”. It’s my permanent vote of confidence in myself. Yes.
***
* The stress actually re-triggered my epilepsy (which had never been diagnosed in childhood) and I started getting simple focal seizures that would grow in regularity until a few grand mal seizures rewired my brain and made me the person I am today! Whoop!
** I didn’t look at my Uni transcripts for years. I didn’t want to see how badly I’d done, and how much my appeal of special circumstances had “made up” for my performance. But a couple of years ago I did look and… I aced those damned exams. I sailed into First Class Honours, special circumstances or no. I cried again over that and I’m not even sorry.
If things had been different I’d have stayed in academia. I’d have gone for a PhD and I’m confident my supervisor would have encouraged me to continue. The work I’d proposed for my dissertation would have been enough as I only ended up covering “Chapter 1” of it in the 10,000 words allowed for undergrad. Unfortunately that choice wasn’t open to me. Without sitting exams at the end of my third year, my projected grade was anywhere between a first and a fail, and I couldn’t apply for further study without something more concrete.
I’ve thought about going back, but once I bought my “yes” my career started to gain momentum, and it’s difficult to get off that train when it’s rolling.
Whatever the path I’ve taken, unless someone chops my arm off, I’ll always have my “yes”.