a tattoo story - a feature with aiukli because life is beautiful

Hi! My name is Mallori from aiukli - because life is beautiful, and I'm very excited to share with you the "stories" behind my two tattoos!

Tattoos have always kind of been commonplace in my household. I remember seeing my great-grandpa with tattoos on his shoulder, and both of my aunts with tattoos on their backs and thighs. Then my mother got one of a rose when I was a little bit older, and I became obsessed with the idea of getting one. I was allowed to get one, but I had to be old enough to get one on my own before I could do it (age 18). I think my mom thought that by 18 I wouldn't want it anymore, or she hoped that I would pick a design that I would always love.

My first tattoo doesn't have much of a meaning behind it. All throughout my freshman year in college, I decided that I wanted to get a tattoo as soon as the school year was up. I looked up thousands of ideas for countless hours, all without any sense of direction as to what I wanted. Then one day, I opened up the school newspaper to the horoscope section and there was my tattoo staring me in the face. [this is picture titled "tattoo 1"] It was a simple black and white design of a crescent moon with three large stars and a bunch of small stars around it. I have loved the suns, moons, and stars design since I was in middle school, and I don't know why I didn't think of something along those lines before. People ask me what it means, and I say, "It actually doesn't mean anything, I just really like the design; but if you'd like my fake reason for it, I'll give it to you. It's my family. My mom is the crescent moon, and you'll notice that all three of the stars are touching the crescent moon, meaning she is still a part of each of us but we are still individual stars." So if you want a "reason," there you have it. It is colored purple and yellow, purple shows my favorite color and the combination of purple and yellow is important to me in two ways: it was the team colors for a summer league softball team I was on growing up, and they are directly opposite each other on the color wheel. My tattoo is almost 4 years old, and it needs to be touched up to color the places in the yellow first missed. It is located on my right hip.

My second tattoo is the most meaningful. I took three semesters of the Native American language, Choctaw. In taking those courses, I decided that no matter what, I wanted a tattoo of something in Choctaw because it is my heritage. I painstakingly looked at sewing designs on dresses, read Choctaw legends, and tried to come up with something that I thought would fit me. I finally decided that I just simply wanted the word "aiukli" (pronounced eye-yuke-lee) to be my motto for every day life. Aiukli means beautiful. It reminds me daily to look for the beauty in even the smallest things. It reminds me that I am a beautiful young woman, and that I need to portray that into the world. It reminds me to see the beauty in other people, no matter how much I get upset or irritated. And it reminds me to remember the beauty that I've come from--having an amazing and supportive family who backs me 100%. I chose black for this because I wanted the tattoo to be simple. I chose the foot for my location because it is something I see every day, even if it's just as I go to bed. I wanted the word to face the world so others would ask about it and then I could explain it to them. :)

I also have to be slightly discreet with my tattoos, just because of the profession I am looking into. I have to maintain a professional image, so any future tattoo must also be able to be covered by clothing. So far, I know of definitely 3 more designs and locations, but the exact date of when these will be added is up in the air :)

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thank you mallori for sharing your wonderful tattoo story!  make sure you stop over at her little corner of the blogging world and say hello :) XO, lindsay