Great to hear your story @acidyo, and to see that you've been rightfully rewarded for your hard efforts and support of Steemit since the early days. I too am an early adopter, but was forced away from Steemit, as well as pretty much everything else of meaning in my life, due to some seriously bad health issues, that started developing towards the end of last year, that also guttingly resulted in me missing Steemfest.

Since then, I've been watching from the sidelines, cheering Steemit's rise enthusiastically & continuing with the odd upvote and comment, at first, as and when I could, but since my health has been improving more-so, over the last few months, I've been able to interact via more extended comments. Rolling to the current day, and I'm nearly at a place where I can start contributing a little more than just comments again, and so am looking forward to writing a returning blog, soon. Not that I ever went anywhere, disbanded or lost belief. From the very first day I signed up, the future of this platform, to me, was never in any doubt. It's great to see it thriving like I knew it would continue to do.

I've really missed contributing in the way that I was able to before my illness set in, but now that i'm almost back to full strength again, I can't wait to get writing again.

Your journey here certainly serves as an inspiration to newcomers and OG's alike. Thanks for sharing :)