Follow the Water

Throughout my life I have had many forks in the road, and I often have a difficult time making the decision on which one to take. I overthink the options to the point of paralysis by over analysis, and have trouble moving in one direction or another.

As cheesy as it sounds...and my last name is after all Cheezem so it's in my nature and I'm not sorry...the one thing that comes through every time, the one signpost I know I can follow, is the ocean.

I know, I know....but come on.  It's pretty damn magical.

I took it for granted when I grew up in Florida, but the last two years of high school that I spent in St. Louis...I missed the damn thing.  And when I didn't know what the hell I wanted to do with my life, except for the fact that I didn't want to be in an office, and my wrestling partners Mitch and Andy Stock were going to West Point...I thought hey, that sounds like a great idea!  What an adventure!  But instead of living in upstate New York and getting stationed in the middle of nowhere, how about I go to Annapolis and get stationed in San Diego or Hawaii?  

So that's what I did

At first I wasn't too stoked on the whole thing...

While I was in college I couldn't decide which major to pick.  I started with Political Science (I wanted to make a difference in the world and all that), but then shifted to History because if I ever got deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan I wanted to know the history and culture of the people I was around.  That lasted one semester, when I had to take a class after lunch called Historiography, which was the history of history and we talked about historians...and I just couldn't do it.

That winter break I went back home to St. Pete, and I remember so vividly being out on the boat.....and it hit me so powerfully....that this is what I want to do with my life.  I want to be on the water.  I don't know how or where, but that's what I want.

So I did. I studied Oceanography, drove ships for 4 years in the Navy and then got into hard hat diving for 3 years after that (more about that later!), and got back out to the west coast as quickly as I could. I'm not sure exactly what the next chapter is going to look like, or even this summer really and that scares the hell out of me, but so far I haven't gone wrong with this philosophy and I believe it will continue to pan out! Anybody else in the same boat!?