{"id":703,"date":"2026-07-09T21:13:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T21:13:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/honorandink.com\/Blog\/?p=703"},"modified":"2026-07-09T21:13:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T21:13:23","slug":"61-the-time-we-have","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/honorandink.com\/Blog\/61-the-time-we-have\/","title":{"rendered":"61 – The time we have"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Marks We Choose to Keep<\/h2>\n

Time has been on my mind a lot lately.<\/p>\n

As I write this, I\u2019m in the process of finally retiring after more than thirty years in the military. I have packed up my life in Hawaii, am in the process of moving back to Texas, and building Honor and Ink\u2122 from the ground up. It\u2019s a season of endings, beginnings, and reflection.<\/p>\n

This year also marks America\u2019s 250th birthday. It\u2019s a time to celebrate what we\u2019ve built together, but it\u2019s impossible for me to celebrate without thinking about the men and women who should be here doing the same. Friends, brothers, sisters, and fellow warriors whose stories ended too soon.<\/p>\n

The older I get, the more I realize that time<\/a> is the only thing we never get back.<\/p>\n

Money comes and goes. Things wear out and are replaced by new ones. Careers end. Houses get sold. Children grow up. One day, every one of us will look back and wonder where the years went. \u00a0I realize I am not the first person to experience this and wont be the last.<\/p>\n

What remains are the moments that shaped us and the people who helped shape them.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one of the reasons I\u2019ve always believed tattoos are more than decoration.<\/p>\n

The best tattoos aren\u2019t just ink<\/a>. They\u2019re stories. They\u2019re reminders of promises we\u2019ve made, people we\u2019ve loved, mountains we\u2019ve climbed, battles we\u2019ve survived, and dreams we refuse to let go of. As my friend Korey at Til Valhalla Project<\/a> shared with me this week, they become permanent reminders of things that deserve to be remembered.<\/a><\/p>\n

Art has always done that.<\/p>\n

Long before photographs, people carved, painted, sculpted, and tattooed their stories so they wouldn\u2019t disappear. We create because we want something meaningful to outlive the moment.<\/p>\n

\"An
An original tattoo design that tries to capture the organic nature of service.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Whether it\u2019s a military memorial, a child\u2019s handwriting, a wedding date, a favorite quote, or a piece of artwork that represents a new chapter in life, a tattoo can become a healthy way to carry a memory forward instead of leaving it behind.<\/p>\n

As an artist, that\u2019s a responsibility I don\u2019t take lightly.<\/p>\n

Every person who sits in my chair trusts me with a story that\u2019s important to them. My job isn\u2019t just to create something that looks good today. It\u2019s to create something they\u2019ll be proud to wear twenty years from now.<\/p>\n

As we celebrate our nation\u2019s birthday, I hope we also take a moment to think about how we\u2019re spending the time we\u2019ve been given.<\/p>\n

Call the people you love.<\/p>\n

Take the trip.<\/p>\n

Learn the skill you\u2019ve been putting off.<\/p>\n

Create something.<\/p>\n

Tell someone what they mean to you.<\/p>\n

And if there\u2019s a story that\u2019s worth carrying for the rest of your life, maybe it\u2019s time to give it a place where it can never be forgotten.<\/p>\n

Because in the end, our lives aren\u2019t measured by the number of years we were given.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re measured by what we chose to remember, what we chose to build, and how we honored the people who helped shape us along the way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Because in the end, our lives aren\u2019t measured by the number of years we were given.
\nThey\u2019re measured by what we chose to remember, what we chose to build, and how we honored the people who helped shape us along the way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,9,26,30],"tags":[19,20,24,13],"class_list":["post-703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art-therapy","category-motivational","category-reflection","category-tattoo-design","tag-art-motivation","tag-creative-growth","tag-positivity","tag-tattoo-artist-journey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/honorandink.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/honorandink.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/honorandink.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/honorandink.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/honorandink.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/honorandink.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":712,"href":"https:\/\/honorandink.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703\/revisions\/712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/honorandink.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/honorandink.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/honorandink.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/honorandink.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}