When I Stop Thinking and Begin
Reflections on the first step after the pause
By now, those of you who have read my posts may have noticed a few things about me. I once lived in Malta, and I took the leap to leave and live elsewhere, bringing my family with me. You may also have noticed that I stepped away from a stable life as a teacher and now take care of a small teahouse.
These big changes did not begin with big gestures. They began with small steps, the kind that make something private suddenly real.
Now, I have taken another small step by writing here. This time, though, the destination is still unclear.
After many years of quiet heaviness, and wrestling with the feeling of wanting more, I learned that the hardest part is not wanting change, but acting on it. First steps are rarely dramatic. They do not arrive as leaps. They arrive quietly, but once taken, they cannot be undone without consequence.
There were many moments in my life that felt heavy, but the heaviest was living a lie for years, trying to fit into a way of life that did not feel like mine. It took a long time to realise that wanting to leave Malta was not weakness, but courage. Deciding to leave the country I had lived in for over thirty years was the hardest step I have ever taken, because once I decided, I could not undo it quietly. It terrified me. Even now, there are days when I question it. Days when I worry. Days when I feel I am failing. Yet, I have no regrets.
Sometimes progress feels overwhelming. You know where you want to get. You might even know which steps are needed. And still, everything feels far away and unreachable. When that happens, I tend to look down instead of ahead.
When I was teaching, I used to help my students with this feeling through a simple game. I gave them large sheets of paper to use as stepping stones, so they could move from one side of the room to the other. Without them, the destination felt impossible. But once the paper was laid out, stepping on each one in turn, it suddenly did not feel so daunting.
Beginnings, though, are not always obvious. There is often a moment between imagining and doing when fear becomes louder. That moment when a dream stops being safe because it asks something of you.
In one of my personal writings, I speak about how I struggle to follow through. I start many things and do not always keep them going. This writing space feels like the moment just after a nudge, when noticing turns into doing, and there is no hiding behind intention anymore. A small, exposed step towards a dream I have carried for a long time, alongside a familiar fear. What if I do not follow through?
Yes, I have doubts. Who does not?
So I take the steps I can. I notice when fear appears. I let mistakes, missteps, and doubts exist alongside small joys and quiet victories. Opening this space feels no different from other first steps I have taken. Tentative. Uncertain. Real.
When I agreed to open the tearoom, I made mistakes. I was smothered with doubt. Nothing felt clear. I did not feel ready then either. I just felt willing enough to try. Once I said yes, the imagining stopped, and the living began.
This feels much the same. Not confident. Not certain. Just honest about wanting to begin, even while carrying the fear of getting it wrong.
I do not have clarity. I am not waiting for it. I am learning to treat uncertainty as part of the process, not a problem to fix.
This is where I am now. Not waiting any long. I’m not sure where I want to go from here, but I’m moving anyway.
If you are here with your own half formed thoughts and hesitant beginnings, I am glad you are. Not because I have answers, but because maybe neither of us needs them right now.
Maybe it is enough to take one step, and then another, and trust that what is meant to be will be.