The First Step

I pondered for a long while how I’d finally start this blog. I struggled with a meaning, a focus, a direction for the text version of my impulsive yet powerful thoughts, which are still cluttered in junk drawers within my memory. I needed a niche, I thought, a methodical way to add value to my readers. 

But then I remembered why I wanted to start this blog in the first place. In no way do I intend for it to be “successful,” and in no way do I intend it to be read deliberately. I am using this medium as an online journal, a way to track my progress through a journey I just recently embarked on. If you like reading it, well then that’s certainly fine with me.

I struggled with a name for my website, for I don’t even know it’s purpose yet. A new friend of mine just recently said, “Just start writing, and you will find your voice eventually.” How purer, how fresher, can an object be called other than it’s true name?  Just as I do not yet know my place in the world, my blog has no voice, no aspiration or expectations. I named this blog torislater.com because it carries me along with it (or drags me, because my thoughts are always one step ahead of the “physical” me).

For years I have struggled with putting my thoughts on paper (or in this case, in type). There was always a story brewing up in the “coffee pot” that is my mind, the designated area where emotions were stirred and the steam never released. Now, without pouring it all out at once, I will release my energy to the world in the form of words. You have to know it’s not easy, though. I am more terrified of publicly exposing my emotions than I am of exposing a nudie on the Internet (that would never happen, but still, I rest my case).

I have been in Thailand for over a month now, and I’ve experienced more adventure and more emotional turmoil than I have in the past 10 years. In the crazy novel that is my life, my last 30-something days in Thailand is a highlighted paragraph jumping from the page, one that I will always flip back to and read over and over again. Why? Because it is the beginning of the climax. It is the beginning of the rest of my life. It is the first step in a number of steps that are still unknown to me.

I am traveling the long and unpaved path towards myself. I do not intend to stop until I have found a passion, a purpose, or a reason to return to the United States of America. My journey has begun in Thailand, where I will be teaching primary school children their fractions, decimals, and geometric shapes. 

I will write once a week about my experiences, whether they are with people, places, things, or ideas, and how they are continuously shaping me mentally, physically, and emotionally. I know that this is a broad envelope of subjects, but I hope to find focus for my writings as I continue to focus in on my life’s purpose.

I am barren of purpose… Although not recently discovered, this fact is still pretty hard to swallow. Stay tuned.