I Swear You Will Be Fine

One of our earliest conversations wasn’t about why i have tattoos or what was the meaning behind each of them. which was nice – because most people would always ask the latter and i honestly don’t have a good answer for that. instead, you told me you wanted to get one and you initially wanted one that would represent the french toast mafia. your group of childhood friends. you always considered things (anything and everything) more than others, thought and felt deeply about most things.

So when i saw this tattoo by dani of a french toast driving a truck, i was pretty excited to show you. you said, “this is exactly the style i was thinking about!” you were genuinely excited too.

then i had a tattoo of a little ghost holding up a flower done, and i asked you and shalini to name it for me. shalini wanted to name it “chair” – tbf that’s pretty cute too, naming things after “things”. but you decided to name it “AUG THE MORBID ORCHID”. so Aug started living as part of me.

Shalini then wanted to get her tattoo updated by the same artist – rach. she had friends and family add on designs to her existing one, but i only found out later that you drew the main design. so sha has your design living as part of her now.

Some days back i decided to get a tattoo for the three of us. from dani who did the french toast. so i told her i wanted to get three characters that represented us. and i told her what the tattoo would mean to us, and why i was getting it. dani took great care of the design and tattooing. she agreed that shalini is just like her character. and if she couldve met you, she would agree that you are just like yours too – seemingly cool and aloof, but just a big ball of everything nice.

this is the first tattoo on me that not only bore meaning, but a privilege to have as a representation of our friendship permanently etched in ink on skin. i think you’d like it too.

“Lynnda”