Behind the Ink: Why I got my first Tattoo.

There is a lot that goes on in deciding to get a tattoo. Whether it is a drunken mistake or a meaningful tribute. You make a decision to have something permanently on your body for the rest of your life and a lot of people have gotten a lot more than me, for a lot less. Two things went into getting mine, the fact that I’m considered lucky, and the fact that I hate my name.

I wasn’t supposed to survive my birth. Not exactly the greatest thing I have ever been told growing up, but it’s the truth at least. I guess you can’t expect much when you’re born on Friday the 13th. Granted my older sister didn’t fare much better than me, but the doctor had an oversight on my birth, he thought I would be fine. I wasn’t breathing when I was born.

I survived, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this, but I was lucky. That’s what the doctors told my parents. Ironic really that I would be lucky on that day. But that was the start of close calls with the doctors. Growing up I developed asthma, and each attack got worse and worse. I kept having closer calls the older I got. I spent a good majority of my childhood hooked up to machines that did breathing for me. I kept telling myself I was lucky enough to have an inhaler, my medicine, hell just to breathe one day on my own I thought I had won the lottery. Something that people don’t even think about was something I struggled with every single day.

That’s what started my gambling addiction. I thought if I was lucky enough to make it through a night without an attack, then I might be lucky enough to make some money. I first learned how to play poker at 8. At school I would teach my friends and bet anything they had. I got really good at winning, I knew it wasn’t because of skill either. As I got older I learned every card game that I could. I was obsessed with betting on sports games, but nothing could beat knowing that you couldn’t guarantee a winner in a card game. I started collecting decks of cards. I really became fixated with one card in particular. It is one of a kind in each deck, and every deck has its own. I fell in love with the Ace of Spades. That’s more related to my name though.

This is the second part of my story starts, and it all comes full circle. When I was born, my parents decided against naming me with what they had originally planned. They wanted my initials to spell out a name. Something that would be cool to call me. That’s when they found a baby name book, randomly picked a name that starts with the letter A, and did the same for my middle name, except with the letter C. Growing up when I was first starting to learn my name, I learned my “nickname.” I didn’t know it wasn’t my actual name until my first day of school in first grade.

The teacher read a name I hadn’t recognized and got angry that I didn’t raise my hand to respond. I told her that wasn’t my name, my name was Ace. She proceeded to tell me it was actually Alec. My whole world came crumbling down. Every year in school no matter how hard I tried, teachers always started the first day calling me Alec and as a result so did all my classmates. Ace was a name that only my family knew me by. To me, it was my actual name, but no matter how hard I tried, no one called me by the name I wanted, just the one I was given.

I decided to do something about it when I was 18 years old. I didn’t want to legally change it, that would take too long and I wanted something done right away. So I found my favorite Ace of Spades card, and went to the closest Tattoo shop to my parent house. I asked for one of the guys I knew who worked there. Right there and then, without telling anyone I had gotten my name sake forever put on my body. I think of it as my personal name tag, but really I know it means that I’m just lucky.