The Ouroboros - Part 1
2026 is 9 months old. And 8 months if you go by the Lunar calendar!
Every year it hits me. I never want summer to end, I don’t want the sun to go away, I don’t want the days to get shorter, I don’t want the leaves to start turning. boo-hoo, yatta-yatta.
But then I’m faced with the inevitable, realize it’s coming whether I like it or not, and then after my mini tantrum, I put my big girl boots on and start participating again.
September is weird for me though because a few things happen at once. First and most obvious, everyone goes back to school. All of my clients that have kids are in a frenzy starting in late-August, preparing their kids for the new school year, my clients in college get ready for a new semester depending on their schedule, and my clients who are teachers prepare to go back to work after a summer of no teaching. Then, the vacationers. Everyone returns from vacation, tired and broke, and drag themselves back to their 9 to 5 routine, while mentally, still away on vacation.
And then finally me.
I watch everyone go back to their corners of the Earth and I fold up my beach towel, because sitting outside in a bathing suit while leaves are falling just feels…wrong. But this is a trivial problem to have, at best. people are dying, kim.
In my head, I hold a little memorial service for summer. It’s my favorite time of year. Don’t get me wrong, I love every season for all different things. But summer is when I feel the most alive.
Gardening, swimming, hiking, ice cream, grilled food, lightning bugs, honey bees, butterflies, hot sun, humidity, iced tea pitchers, bikinis, ripped shorts, tank tops, canoeing, camping, fishing, campfires, sunsets, late nights. I could go on, AND ON, and on.
A little collage of my summer. So much food —not— pictured
And sure, plenty of these things I could still do after summer. But I know a lot of you can relate when I say…it’s just not the same.
So I let myself grieve a little and mope.
September is lonely. But necessary. I will complain, I will pout, I will cry, I will be the biggest pain in the ass my poor husband has ever seen. But again. Necessary.
While the first few days of September are sad and lonely, it’s also the precursor to one of the most significant months of my tattoo career. Everything refreshes in September. I made the bold, and quite possibly stupid decision, to leave the world of street shops, and open a private tattoo studio on my own 6 years ago. A huge gamble. So even though this month signifies the end, it also marks a new beginning. It’s even reflected in the bills for the business haha. Everything renews here! And it’s this very sentiment that makes the end of summer feel a little more bearable.
Now that my summer-end blues is starting to fade, I think I’m ready to party…
…because GUYS.
It’s our —b i r t h d a y— after all!
Did you hear me?? The studio turned SIX.
Wanna see our baby pics? :3
Look at these hard workers!
Our very humble beginnings.
We ripped up the carpets, then the floors, then more floors, then plywood, until FINALLY, the beautiful original hardwood floors were revealed. But not without layers of horrible orange-y brown paint -_-
Then we sanded, and sanded, and sanded. And it STILL wouldn’t come off. Until eventually after a lot of sketchy diy-ing, we ended up with a rustic, glossy-finished hardwood that creaks and cracks and loves to remind me she’s 125 years young. <3
I’m the only artist at my studio. But to say it’s “just me” doing everything, feels like a lie. Sure, a lot of the daily stuff is usually just me, but there is a massive, titanic-nuking iceberg (too soon? XD) of people below the surface of just the tattoos I make who are responsible for helping me actually get this far.
I have a whole squad of lunatics behind me, that seem to be unconditionally devoted to me and ensuring that I succeed at everything I try to do in life. I think they’re all crazy for that but I also love them for that. And for each of them, I am eternally grateful.
And now, I wonder, what will I do for year 6? What SHOULD I do for year 6? I have no background or formal education in owning a business. Most small business owners don’t. You just decide one day you don’t want to ask permission anymore and then go work 7 days a week and stress more instead HAHA.
“ f R e E d O m “ eye roll
Point being though, I make most of this up as I go along and hope things work out and that all of you like what I’ve done. I don’t KNOW how I’m “supposed” to do it. No one taught me that part. Tattooing? Sure. But not running the actual business part. I underestimated how much needs to be done in order for this thing to keep working, so I hope you’re all enjoying watching me wing it every day :)
But back to my burning question, of what should I do for year 6…for starters I think we should celebrate our birthday. People usually get gifts for their birthday, right? So I’ve decided to give you all a kind of birthday gift.
All of September I’m going to offer every tattoo session for 15% off. Everyone is always strapped for cash at the end of summer between trips, school expenses, work closures and general life. Which sucks because I know so many of you want to get tattooed. And fall into winter is the best time to do it. So hopefully this little “birthday gift” helps make it a little more accessible for those of you in this exact situation.
Beyond just the bittersweet end of the summer, I find myself hitting creative burnout at the end of each season. Which is not unusual. After months of repetition, it’s easy for me to feel like I’m hitting a wall and the thought of having to create something just makes me want to melt away. I’m always looking for ways to keep things feeling fresh and avoid unnecessary burnout whenever possible. Part of what’s been gnawing away at my creativity recently is I haven’t gotten a lot of tattoo requests that let me just run rampant. Fineline tattoos are super popular right now and they are my bread and butter. I will never be ungrateful to those who fill my books. But I need a little more. When I do nothing but bread and butter tattoos for the purpose of keeping the lights on, my inner pilot light of creativity goes out. And for an artist by trade, that is the equivalent of death (tuy-tuy!). Haha.
And so I wanted to mark another rebirth in the cycle here. I’m calling for the end of one journey and the beginning of a new one.
While I’m often itchy and resistant to change, especially when I’m comfortable, I still know when I really need it. So I’ve had an idea brewing on how to breathe some new life back into things and shed this tattoo boredom I’ve been plagued by recently…
And with that, I will close this first chapter and leave you with a little curiosity to chew on until the next one.
