Lately I feel a complete lack of purpose

Since having no choice but to give up university in April due to a complete lack of reliable childcare I have spent the last few months at home with Meadow. This is time that I am of course extremely grateful for, it is however time that I i’m beginning to resent as for the third time in my life I have sacrificed my career to raise a child the very best way I can. 

I spend my days at home with Meadow teaching her skills that will help her throughout life, both physically and mentally. I practice gentle parenting, we walk a lot we talk a lot and we do everything together. I love her to pieces as I do my older children. 

There is however an undeniable storm brewing within me as this is not the life that envisaged I would have; raising children until I’m too old to care. As a child I dreamt that I would be a successful vet, I would have lots of animals, I would travel all over the world, I would be a good friend and always there for people in need. I would make my own money and never be financially reliant upon anybody.

Over the course of my adult life all I’ve ever really wanted was to be successful at something and I feel like the only thing I’ve really been successful at is raising children. Which is a wonderful thing to have done however is that all I was ever good for?

I’m not at all suggesting that anyone who chooses to stay home is less valuable to the world than someone who doesn’t. However I seem to have lived a life that was never really part of my plan.

Which leads me to wonder is there ever any point in having plans or dreams as a child when actually life pans out how it’s going to pan out and it seems we have little control over that. 

I know that my contribution during my lifetime has been to raise three children to be well prepared to live their lives within this world.

I don’t want the cycle to continue though, I want them to live their lives I want them to travel I want them to be free and never feel that they have to have children just to have completed their purpose. That is an old rhetoric, their contribution to the world can be whatever they wish it to be and if that involves having no children but living an absolutely wonderful life I would be so happy for them to do that. 

I’ve been looking lately at Open University degree courses that I can do at home. To what avail? I don’t know, I don’t even know the direction I want to travel in as a career anymore, it’s hard to make choices on careers when it feels that everything you’ve ever tried has momentarily felt successful and then fallen flat on its face. 

In addition to a complete lack of direction I’m also realistic and realising that I probably won’t actually have any time to complete an open University course at home even though I spend 99% of my time here.

By the time all of the laundry, the cleaning, the cooking, the childcare is completed and I’ve put Meadow to bed I’m absolutely exhausted. By this point my ‘shift’ has been 15 hours long… 7 days of the week. That’s a 105hr working week. 

I don’t know if anyone will read this or if this is just an open diary entry, however mum taught me that journal writing is helpful and in some ways this has been cathartic. So if no one reads it that doesn’t matter because somehow it’s helped me feel better to just ramble for awhile.

New start

*peers out in to the wilderness* 

Is there anyone still here? I don’t know if there is, but I’m going to reclaim this blog but now with a difference. I now acknowledge that I am more than just the tattoos I produce.

The things I am, the things I care about; know about and am passionate about equate to so so much more than just tattooing an the extremely corrupt and introverted industry it is. I’ve stopped battling to find my space within ‘the good ole boys club’ and I found myself a much nicer space in a place where I feel valued; my own space. 

I’m still tattooing but now I allow much more time for my other interests which include foraging, sustainability, natural parenting, witch craft and paganism, vegetarianism and veganism, crocheting, sewing, painting and block printing. 

I’ve began to address my mental health in a way that proactively accepts that I need help in order to live and fulfil my life goals. I’m not fighting to be ‘normal’ any more. I have been provisionally diagnosed with ADHD and my entire world just started to make a little more sense! 

I’ve so much to talk about, tattoos now make up at most 10% of my existence and I am no longer forcing my entire life to be about tattooing. I never fit entirely into that box, although I do see there is space for a small part of me in tattooing just not all of me.

Stick around if you want to hear more on any of these things that I’ve spoken about 🖤

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More recent work

On my beautiful friends thigh; this girl knows how to sit for a tattoo mind!

Added to this ongoing polynesian piece

Took a sailor jerry horse and made it a pink unicorn; standard :-D

This dove is one of a matching pair; one on each foot 

An update!

Clearly I'm the least organised person in the world ever! 

Here's a few highlights and updates over the last however long

The star was there already so I reworked it to fit in with the new stuff :-) 

This lady sat unbelievable well! Whole foo dog in one hit

I do quite a lot of re-works and cover-ups, personally I find that quite satisfying to do :-) 

This is a love of mine! Handprints/footprints whether human or animal, I love tattooing them :-)

And dotwork; please bring me your dotwork/mehindi/geometric ideas! Here's a few I've done recently ;;

A little pictorial update

This customer had this tattoo for her daughter; a fairy representation of her little girl :-) 

Super hard to get a good picture of this tattoo, it's a semi realistic kingfisher, I really enjoyed this one; more like this please! 

Another tricky one to photograph, this tattoo realistic scorpion has a hint of blue  in the body at the customers request, I wasn't convinced this was a good idea at first but it actually works very well! 

These little traditional swallows were a pleasure to tattoo. This was the customers first traditional pieces and I've a feeling he will be back for more, I'm chuffed to say he was over the moon with these :-)

This jellyfish is now forever residing on my boyfriends leg amongst lots of other nautical themed tattoos. Again I really enjoyed this tattoo realistic style and would love to do more of it. 

When I saw the handful of stencilled silhouette birds for this tattoo... I'll be honest; I had my doubts! But once again my customers prove me wrong and this came out beautifully, it's so simple yet striking.

Now what tattooist doesn't like tattooing traditional classic things like this?! Enjoyed every second of it and it was nice to do a traditional piece in black and grey; adding a little twist on the norm. 

Another semi realistic animal! Did I mention I love this stuff? I like to challenge myself and see how lifelike I can get things and each one I do gets me closer to realism :-) 

Quite often I get assigned these smaller tattoos at the shop and although many tattoo artist like to think they are above these small walk ins, I like to keep grounded and I thoroughly enjoy treating each and every one of them as a work of art in itself. A tattoo is with a customer for life and regardless of how big your ego has got as a tattooist you must never forget that it may only be small to you but it's big to that customer: they will remember this day for life. So on that note here's a selection of my smaller pieces:

Thanks for taking the time to read this entry :-) I have another bumper load of pictures to put in to another blog so stay tuned and I will aim to get them up shortly :-) 

As always, do feel free to contact me with tattoo enquiries on lollypixiepop@googlemail.com and I will get back to you ASAP :-) 

More work!

Few more of my latest work and more to come