A New Tattoo? - It was only a matter of time

Adam, Ed, & Nick have all gotten new ink in the past few months and I have grown increasingly jealous of the lovely works of art they have added to their bodies. It is true that once you get one tattoo, you want to get more and seeing as I got my first tattoo almost 10 years ago, I am well overdue.

I have been considering the next tattoo I should get probably since the day after I got my first one. I have been all over the board but nothing really hit me as being as significant as I want it to be. Here are my criteria:

Beautiful, colorful, feminine, symbolic and somewhere on my back or hip, basically somewhere on the torso.

I considered a peacock for awhile as I think they are absolutely beautiful and as far as the symbolism peacocks are a symbol of openness and acceptance. In Christianity the peacock is a symbol of immortality and in Buddhism they represent wisdom. I can stand behind the symbolism but it wasnt something that really resonated with me and I also had a hard time figuring out where to put it that wouldnt look odd. I realized if I have to try this hard that it just isnt meant to be.

So I moved on to floral tattoos. I looked up a bunch of flowers and their meanings and was having trouble finding a flower I liked that also had a meaning I liked (a lot of them had to do with purity and I thought uhh yeah not so much). So I then started thinking of cherry blossoms, which can be a somewhat popular tattoo but it is beautiful and colorful which fits part of my criteria. I did more research and found the symbolism behind them and I absolutely loved it:

Chinese Cherry Blossom
For the Chinese the cherry blossom is a very significant symbol of power. Typically it represent a feminine beauty and sexuality and often holds an idea of power or feminine dominance. Within the language of herbs and herbal lore of the Chinese the cherry blossom is often the symbol of love.

Japanese Cherry Blossom

For the Japanese the cherry blossom holds very different meaning. The cherry blossom is a very delicate flower that blooms for a very short time. For the Japanese this represents the transience of life. This concept ties in very deeply with the fundamental teachings of Buddhism that state all life is suffering and transitory. The Japanese have long held strong to the Buddhist belief of the transitory nature of life and it is very noble to not get too attached to a particular outcome or not become emotional because it will all pass in time.

Whats really cool is I have had a fortune tapped in my wallet for years that says "Accept something you cannot change and you will feel better" which is one of my favorite quotes that I frequently go to when I need to feel better about things and get a new perspective. And that quote goes along very well with the japanese symbolism of the cherry blossom.

So I am narrowing it down, however I am still thinking about placement and the important details. I want them to be realistic and not at all cartoonish. I need to think about size though and thickness of the branches and all of that artsy stuff I am not great at but I guess thats what the job of the tatto artist is.

I attached some pics of tattoos and cherry blossoms for reference. I like the placement of the one on the girls side better than the one that goes all the way up the back but I dont like the background as much.

Ok so thoughts?