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Answer by Jae Alexis Lee, 50 hours under the needle and counting:
I’m going to say something that may surprise people who have followed things I’ve said about tattoos in the past: I regret some of my ink, and that sucks.
I have a large unfinished tattoo. I mean … large. From shoulder to shoulder down to my hips large. And I have some regrets. I know what you’re thinking, but let me explain.
My first regret is that it’s unfinished. I couldn’t really afford a full back tattoo when I started it, but I was teaching martial arts, and my artist was also struggling financially but wanted his children in classes. So we traded professional services. I taught for him, and he tattooed for me. It worked great until the day he vanished. I have no idea where he went. His phone number had disconnected, he’d moved out of the house where I had been meeting him and his children for their private lessons, and the last tattoo shop he’d worked for said he’d packed out a few weeks prior and they didn’t know where he went. Poof. So now I’m left with a large and unfinished piece that’s going to be very expensive to complete. That’s the first thing I regret.
The second thing I regret is that I didn’t have the will to communicate effectively what I wanted. Now, this was the same guy who did my first tattoo and had done two for my wife and fixed another of hers. As an artist, I trusted him because I had seen him produce wonderful things for me. What I wanted, though, was an expression of what I felt inside that I couldn’t tell the world about. I wanted something that represented the woman I was within at a time when I couldn’t imagine ever transitioning. The first and second drafts weren’t quite right, but by draft three I felt like maybe I wasn’t being reasonable and just rolled with it. I also said yes when he said, “I’m just going to freehand this bit,” and I really shouldn’t have. Not because what he did was bad—it’s very good. But because it’s not what I wanted.
I’ve been thinking for a long time about what to do about that large unfinished piece. I am finally in a place, 10 years later, where I can financially take on doing something about it. I’ve considered having a laser procedure to fade it and going for a cover-up. I’ve also considered just moving forward with the framework that’s there. I don’t know. Hopefully I will know sometime in the next year.
Do I regret my first tattoo? No. Do I regret my third tattoo? No. Do I plan for more tattoos besides the one on my back? Absolutely! Next up is a thigh piece. But looking back on that big unfinished piece, I wish I’d done two things: I wish I’d stood firm on getting what I really wanted, and I wish I hadn’t gotten into it without the financial ability to continue it if things went sideways and I wasn’t able to barter to the end of it.
My advice to young people is to think carefully on tattoos and designs. Make sure that six months after you say, “This is what I want,” you still feel like that’s what you want and then get your tattoo. And if you’re taking on a large piece, make sure you can see it through to the end.
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