The summer of my 3rd year of college I was in a horrible car accident. Had surgery to place a steel rod in my femur, and a plate in each of my radius and ulna on the left arm. Long scar down my thigh from the surgery. And that was in addition to another long scar right next to it from years before this accident. In Junior High, a car fender ripped my leg open after I veered my bicycle off the sidewalk because some guy threw a lit salute at me.
While at the beach after I got out of the hospital, a lady and her young son (maybe 7 years old?) walked past me. The boy said something like "hey mom, look at the lady with the scar on her leg." It was pretty red, and still had the marks from where the staples were pulled out post-surgery, so it looked like a big long wormy insect crawling up my leg. Indented.
I figured - well obviously people are staring, and now this young kid has pointed that out to me. So if they're going to stare, I should give them something pretty to look at.
I got up from the beach, gathered my things, and high-tailed it to the nearest tattoo parlour. Got a butterfly hovering over a flower, on my upper thigh just a couple of inches away from the leg hole of my bathing suit. Since I'm not really much of a beach person and I don't wear "short shorts" this spot rarely had exposure to the sun. And so it is almost as vivid and colorful as when I got it. In 1983.
I have one other one, a little heart with flames coming up from the top and three drops down from the bottom. A bleeding, burning heart, representing passion and compassion. That was a botched job, so the heart is all crackled. The image isn't faded at all though, merely defective. I keep thinking I'll get it properly filled in some day but it'd cost around $100. I only paid $50 for it, back in 1991.
That's all I have, and all I'm interested in having. I like seeing some of the gorgeous artwork on some folks. If it's properly inked and the person takes care to keep the sun off of it, it isn't likely to fade much at all. If their weight also doesn't change drastically over time, it won't look too much different from when it was first put there. It really depends on where on the body it's put, how much sun exposure you have over many years time, and the quality of the tattoo.
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