Kat’s Tat [PHOTOS & VIDEO]

You may have heard me talking about my plans for a new tattoo. Well, I did it! AND it’s AWESOME! I have had the idea for the tattoo for a while now, and had just been waiting for the right time, and the right artist. I finally found both. I want to start by saying a big, huge, gigantic THANK YOU to Shane Klos at Revolution Ink!!! He took the words that I wanted tattooed, “Crazy Beautiful Perfectly Flawed,” and turned them into a beautiful piece of art that I now get to carry with me everywhere I go. I could not have asked for a more perfect visual translation of the words! I also have to say “Thank you” to my friend Yvonne James for stopping in to grab some great photos of my experience!!

Tattoos are an amazing way to commemorate life. They tell a story. This is my tenth tattoo, and it means a lot to me. Tomorrow will mark the 33^rd year of my life, and to celebrate, I knew that it was time to get MY tattoo. I have struggled for a lot of years with the need to achieve perfection – in every aspect of my life – Relationships: I have the tendency to give so much of myself that I forget to care for myself too. Career: I strive to always do my very best. I have to succeed.  Motherhood: This is my biggest self-applied pressure. Dear God, please don’t let me fail. My daughter deserves better than I had. She has to know that I love her and she is always my top priority. “Anything less than perfect is failure. There is no in between.” This was how I lived my life for many years.

Crazy Beautiful: In February, I met Mike. Well sort of… We had been friends on Myspace and Facebook for about 5 years. He had made several attempts to get me to hang out. “We should get together for a beer sometime.” And I kept making excuses. Until January… That’s when I agreed to finally meet Mike, and go out for a drink. We had our first “date” (it wasn’t supposed to be a date), the second week of February. He and have I have been pretty much inseparable since. Mike is amazing! He makes me laugh uncontrollably, and for once in my life I feel like I can really just be myself. Mike tells me that he thinks I’m beautiful. I always answer by telling him that I think he’s crazy! It’s not that I don’t believe that Mike feels that way, it’s just that I’ve never seen myself that way. Not really… But you know, maybe he’s right. In my own way, I guess I am beautiful, and I am definitely a little crazy!

Perfectly Flawed: My personal life has never been easy. Even as a teenager I struggled. I struggled at home. I struggled socially (I was awkward. I didn’t fit in. And YES I was bullied). Fast forward to “Grown-up Kat”- In the last 3 years, I have gone through a great deal of changes and a lot of ups and downs. Those changes, and those ups & downs have made that philosophy of “Anything less than perfection is failure” really hard to maintain. In fact those things have actually made that philosophy IMPOSSIBLE! What I have learned is that perfection does not exist. In fact I have learned that no matter how hard I try, I will never be perfect. The closest I will ever come to perfection is being “Perfectly Flawed.” I am going to make mistakes. I am going to fail. And ultimately, that is OKAY. Life will continue on, and even though it won’t be perfect, I will survive it. I will become stronger.

So, yeah. That’s the story. Although it’s not been an easy 33 years, I survived. I get to hold my head up with the knowledge that “Crazy Beautiful Perfectly Flawed” is exactly what I am, and it’s PERFECT!