I moved around a lot as a kid — new schools, new towns, never really put down roots anywhere. Isolation was just normal for me before I even had a word for it. Then I joined the Navy, and for the first time I had something like family — people working toward the same goal, watching your back, bonded by the same long days and the same bad days.
Then I got out. And that family, that structure, just disappeared overnight. I went into a bad depression. Social anxiety got worse than it had ever been. What pulled me through wasn't one thing — it was leaning on the same stuff that got me through being that isolated kid in the first place: building things, losing myself in tech, and slowly making real friends along the way who stuck.
Some things are easier to carry when you're not carrying them alone.
That's why my friend Chris and I built The Harbor — a free monthly live circle on Mimea. Chris is a US Navy veteran too, and the founder of Shanti's Lounge. We talk about this stuff constantly — off camera, just checking in on each other, the way you do with someone who's actually been through it with you. At some point we asked ourselves: why keep this just between us? Why not open the door?
Chris, in his own words:
"The Harbor comes from the Navy. When your ship is in the harbor, it's the safest place it can be — and the harbor has a lighthouse that guides you home, especially through a storm. For me, that storm has been my own mind.
When you're in the military, you build this bond with people from every background — you've all got the same chiefs, the same bad days, the same storm. Then you get out, and that's just... gone.
I've lost friends to suicide, and I've been closer to that edge myself than I like to admit. I was lucky enough to make it through, and I couldn't waste that."
A lighthouse isn't much — it's just a light in the dark that tells you you're not alone. That's all I'm trying to build here, at a small scale. I'm not fixing anybody, not forcing anything. Just a space that says: you're not by yourself out here. There are other lights out here too."
What The Harbor actually is:
- A monthly live conversation about stress, PTSD, grief, and just plain hard weeks — not a class, not a pitch, just people showing up honestly.
- Private and free to join (members-only) — what's said in The Harbor stays in The Harbor.
- No pressure to talk. Come just to listen, or just to be heard. Both count.
First session — "Dropping Anchor: What Brings You to Harbor"
📅 Wednesday, Oct 28 · 8 PM ET
Free to join. Sign in on Mimea and RSVP → https://mimea.co/live
You don't need the right words. You just have to show up.