A decision 35 years ago changed my life dramatically!
I went scuba diving yesterday at Summersville Lake in West Virginia. Yes, West Virginia. People outside the local dive community would likely be surprised just how much diving goes on in that lake in the central part of the state.
It’s where I learned to dive and I try to get back up there every summer for a couple dives, just to float.
My dive buddy Zach Harold and I were chatting with some of the other divers as they set up before we got started. One asked me when I got certified.
I stumbled for a second. Not that I didn’t remember the year. But it dawned on me just how long ago that was.
I was originally certified as a PADI Open Water diver in 1990. That was 35 years ago.
I wanted to learn to dive. It was something I had dreamed of, and, to be frank, I thought it would look cool on my resume. My girlfriend Cyndi told me a local university had a scuba class we could take together. We did the class throughout the spring and did our checkout dives at the lake that summer. We took a PADI Advanced Open Water Diver class that summer as well.
Driving back from the lake yesterday, I started thinking about all the experiences that class opened up for me. It really set my career on a whole new trajectory, not that I would realize it at first.
More importantly, I started thinking about all of the people that have come and gone throughout my life in those 35 years. I know all of them changed my life in one way or another. My thanks to them all. There are way too many to try to mention.
I guess this is me looking back and realizing (with apologies to the Grateful Dead) “What a long strange trip it's been.” Of course, “a touch of gray kinda suits me, anyway.”
Of course: “It’s not the years, honey. It’s the mileage.”
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Love this, Eric.