Today is a very special day for me for a number of reasons. On the one hand I am celebrating my successful NFT series, the NFTarot sold out this week marking the end of a months long art project that started in March for me. But that is very minor compared to why this day is truly a day for celebtation.

I am a prior service member, not trying to dox myself too heavily but I joined the military at 17 years old and served an 8 year contract. 3 years ago I ran 22 miles to bring awareness to the 22 veterans that end their lives by their own hand EVERY DAY. The run was painful and long and sometimes I still think about how hard that run was for me both physically and emotionally.

2 years ago I nearly became one of those statistics. I was admitted to a mental health facility after trying to take my own life. I was kept there for nearly a month.

While I was healing and growing and trying to regain my spark for life I created a tool from the outside world to use in the hospital. I took some cards from 2 decks of playing cards and made a deck of 78 cards which I drew on with pen so that each card would represent one of the cards from the tarot deck. That deck got me through so much of that time. I must have read about 50 peoples tarots, 50 people that were there for the same reason as me. And the tarot laid their pain out in the open, the stories and messages of the cards helped them to find hope and revealed solutions to many of the problems that had brought them to that hospital wing with me. There was one guy who sometimes couldnt sleep so he'd wake me up at 2 am or 3 am just to reconsult the cards and see if the deck had some new wisdom for him.

This pixel tarot deck for me was so much more than just my foray into nfts or expressing my artistic vision. With each art I created for the deck there was a person's story from that mental health facility running through my head. With each card, I was releasing some of that persons pain from my own mind into my art.

In the future if this deck gets popular and I start recieving royalties I will be working with some of my friends who are veterans to find a charity that is actually helping veterans with their mental health struggles so I can give back.

If you are ever thinking about ending your life DON'T! Your life is precious, your life has meaning, and even if your life is hard right now there is no telling what the future holds. It gets better, not all at once, but it does get better. Find someone to talk to, and even if that person is a guy you've never met that sells tarot cards for crypto, talk it out, dont sit with that pain by yourself.

So in conclusion, yes today is veterans day and I'm happy about my NFT project, but for me this day is a second birthday. I'm up to 2 years of bonus time because I didn't die that night and I'm so glad that I'm still here. Thanks for reading.