Well, this is most awkward. I finally started the blog. Had a million ideas flying about my mind ready to spew forth upon these pixels and yet, barely anything comes to mind now. It’s easy to “write” about yourself and your thoughts when you do all the work in your mind. Getting them out there/here where ever to mostly complete strangers (most of whom I will never meet) however is a completely different beast. They, you, the reader doesn’t know the slightest bit of who I am, what I have been through or what I have felt and to compensate for this I’ll try my best to give an accurate description of myself without drowning you in every detail.
I am a college student. Enrolled in the greatest college on Earth: The State University of New York Maritime College. A college with so much history and even more stories, myths and legends I’ll have to devote other posts to it later. I am in my 5th and hopefully final year here and plan on receiving my United States Coast Guard 3rd Assistant Engineer License upon graduation. Hopefully outside of college I’ll be sailing for MEBA, the engineers union and paying back my loans relatively quickly. This is also the biggest influence on my life, the sea. I’ll do my damnedest to describe what it is like out on the open ocean, the middle of nowhere, the void, what have you.
I come from a family of 5. I am the oldest of 3 siblings and my parents are still married. Sure there is plenty to say about them but that’s for other stories. It wouldn’t do them justice to bury them in the first post.
I went to a small high school, graduated with a class of 172 (the largest class the school has ever seen). It was an interesting area to grow up in. We had tractor day at school when the farmer kids would ride tractors to school and take up as many parking places as possible.
I was spoiled as a child growing up, not with material possessions but with location. My grandparents on both sides live(d) with in 15 minutes of my family’s house. Across the street from me is a forested nature preserve that has been used for all sorts of adventures and shenanigans. Even better is that my family had water front property right down the road from the house. We have access to a dock slip and a beach and plenty of other beaches in almost any direction you can choose. Plenty of farm land around too. Looking back I realized I was blind to the gem that my town is.
Now for the most important part. Why did I start this blog in the first place? There is no easy answer. Maybe I wanted to share my life story with the world or maybe just pretend the world would read it. Make it into my health goal blog and use it as motivation to cut the weight I’ve put on since college started. Or just a place to get my ideas out of my head and recorded somewhere for once. The bits and pieces of stories/pieces/poetry that I compose in my mind. The best answer I can give to you all right now is that this is my blog, I’m not sure where it is going yet but I would appreciate it if you came along on the voyage with me as I continue to discover who I am and what I am capable of.
To end the first post here is a short little piece I wrote this summer.
“Letting the anchor go and drifting at the whim of the currents and winds. Where ever I may wash ashore I shall embrace it and build a new home.”
Thank you for reading I’ll post again soon.
-Mitch
The Unyielding Tide 