I get sooooo many questions about my belly tattoo, but more so comments on how confident I am about flaunting my belly around. I've been pretty confident and accepting of myself for quite some time now, however, EVERY woman has had those "if my stomach was just flat" moments in the mirror. Especially in my younger days I was a huge supporter of the fajas, and waist trainers and anything that would suck me in and create the illusion of a smooth flat front. However, after my mini strokes in 2018 that quickly came to a hault, as I found out that my autoimmune disease causes inflamation in my blood vessels and any constricting garments thus worsened my circulation. As a result of this, wearing anything restricting especially about my legs or belly would cause a rise in blood pressure, sweating, dizziness, and and impediment to my ability to digest food. So basically, waist training days were over.
It is around this time I really grew to know my body and accept her for her, and her imperfections. More so her internal imperfections - but this new connection with my body definitely trickled down to my physical as well. Now, with belly forced to hang loose all the time - I began to grow a new appreciation for my long torso and soft flab. When I was deep in the flares of my autoimmune disease, I would spend many long nights with the heating pad on my belly for comfort, or rubbing her to sooth myself to sleep.
So, all of this coupled with itching for a new tattoo and finally wanting a larger piece led me to say dammit, i'm tatting this belly up. At first I was thinking something higher up - more along the lines of an underboob tattoo, and then I thought about the 5 inches my boobs drop down when the are released from the bra and the thought of trying to heal an literal under boob tattoo made me cringe. The placement of my tattoo was decided soley on the fact that I didnt want any skin or bra touching it while it was trying to heal. I wanted it to be able to breathe - so I had to go with smack dab in the middle of my belly, far enough down to not be touched by any parts of the bra so that friction would not ruin the healing.
On the day of, I went to my tattoo artist and showed him my vision. we had a little back and forth on size and color ( he wanted to do gray shading and I was insistant on not just full color - but water color). Once we came to an agreement, we began the two hour process. As usual, the line work felt like nothing, however the color shading made me never want to get another color tattoo again lol. Once finished, I was charged with the task of healing that bad baby which meant, a few ruined shirts from ink or blood seeping through; trying to stay cool and avoid drenching my new tattoo in summer time sweat; and avoiding sitting slumped over to where my bra would reach down and rub my tattoo. Healing this belly tattoo in the summertime was hell and I would definitely give it a 0/10 on yelp. If I could do it again I would definitely get this tattoo in the wintertime!
Now that it's all tatted up, my belly is my favorite part of my body. Its warm, its soft , (not soo smooth) and its decorated beautifully with my ink. If you have any qualms about decorating any part of your body because its socially unacceptable, definitely ignore that and do yo thang. My tattoo makes me feel so feminine and delicate and I get endless compliments!
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