Late Beginnings

Hi, my name is Jason Platt. It's great to finally meet you. 

Here's a little tid-bit about me.

And I'm usually late to the party.

No, not the literal party. I'm rarely invited to those. When I am, I'm usually the guy standing in the corner with the "non-toothed" smile on my face, nodding and probably looking like the weird guy that was accidentally invited.

Side note: This probably gave you a pretty weird first impression of what I look like, or what strange social interactions I have. Rest assured dear readers I do, in fact, have teeth. In fact, my teeth are so big that they have been known to be seen from space without the aid of any type of telescope*.

Side note to the side note: I am and have been successfully invited to parties before (I probably gave you the wrong impression when I said that I was "accidentally invited to parties"). Truth of the matter is that I am that friend who just plain loves to laugh. And--if it's in good taste--you might find me laughing at the relentless teasing that my friends, and even loved ones, have endured me with over the years. As I've grown older I've realized that being able to laugh at yourself is a good quality to have.

But I digress:

On more than one occasion I have felt and even thought to myself, "Wow, look at me, I just used a quotation mark for an internal monologue... wait, I'm talking out loud!" and after that literary mishap I would actually think, 'Wow... I should have been at this point in my life a long time ago. Why didn't I get here sooner?' 

I know, I know. It doesn't matter when you get there, as long as you do.

Blah blah blah blah.

I've heard it before. I've even told it to myself from time-to-time, I have even said it to other people. Had I known about the T-shirt, I probably would have purchased a few. On the up-side: Had I known about the T-shirt, my dresser drawers would probably be overstuffed with them by now.

I remember when I was a senior high school I was amazed how classmates not only knew where they were going to college, but knew what they wanted to do for the rest of their lives. FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES. I could barely make a solid decision on what movie I wanted to go see that weekend, let alone beginning the steps on a foreseeable future.

At the time I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I had no plan and had no particular drive. Even though I went to the local community college right after graduation, it wasn't until three years later, and a lot of self searching, before I had a clue of what it was I wanted to do. And when I got to that point I thought, 'why did it take me so long to get here?'

It can be hard to figure out where life takes you. It can be hard to learn from mistakes you've made in the past, and, sometimes, even harder to push out the left over energy you have at the end of the day to pursue what you really want to do.

I have thought about doing a blog like this for sometime now. But it was one of those "I'll get to one day's" type of thing. I had tried to so something like this a few years ago with not much success (I was trying to do something more linear at the time.) I'm not saying I'll be great at this whole thing. I'm not saying that I will have anything in particular interest to share. Or even claim that I will write something profound or anything with meaning.

That being said I will share with you some if my favorite stories I've experienced; some of my successes and some of my failures. Stories of both fatherhood and being a husband. And--of course--the stories that are embarrassingly awesome about myself. For some of you who know me personally, you might have heard some of these before. But you know... there are some stories that are worth hearing again.

I can't say I know exactly where I'll end up with all of this, but I can say with certainty:  It's better to have a late beginning than no beginning at all.

*this may or may not be an exaggeration on my part.