I’ve wanted to write a book for years, but I can never seem to finish any of the more ambitious projects I start. Lately, I’ve been binge-reading Matt Dinniman’s Dungeon Crawler Carl series, and it’s given me a newfound inspiration for how to approach this lifelong ambition.
As I understand it, Dinniman began publishing chapters of his work on Royal Road in 2019. Fast-forward to today, and Dungeon Crawler Carl has grown into an eight-book series with millions of copies sold. I’m not particularly interested in becoming a bestselling author so much as becoming a literary completionist. I’ve had this itch to write a book for years, but my willpower, as it stands, has produced precious little fruit. It’s time to change my approach.
So, I’ve decided to write this book one chapter at a time, publishing it here on the blog as I go.
The story will follow my life as a traveling sterile processing technician, working in healthcare facilities across the country. I began this journey in May 2025, and the chapters will alternate between memories of the past and the unfolding events of my present-day adventures.
As for the ending? There isn’t one in sight. The story will write itself.
I have only one title in mind for this endeavor, and it’s a title I’ve shared with just one person: my latest soul workmate, who happens to dislike it. Naturally, I adore pushing her buttons, so I’ve decided to go with it.
I present to you Tales of the Traveling Male.
I hope you’ll join me on this road to nowhere.
Chapter 1 – Yellow Butterfly
A yellow butterfly has made its way into my consciousness today. Three times, to be exact, and all before 1:00 p.m.
The first appeared on my way to Brash Coffee for a passion fruit espresso tonic. The second found me sitting outside Chattahoochee Food Works, at a yellow table with a matching chair, perfectly suited to this warm Georgia summer day. The third crossed my path on my way home to the small and mysterious neighborhood of Berkeley Park.
Naturally, I consulted ChatGPT about what a yellow butterfly might symbolize. It provided an abundance of interpretations, each of which I could probably justify with the ever-resourceful human mind. Objectively speaking, the butterflies probably mean nothing. Perhaps this area is simply crawling with them at this time of year. Their appearances might be no more significant than those of countless other species that fail to stir my mystical sensibilities.
But where is the fun in that?
The fact remains that these yellow butterflies have struck me as something extraordinary. They have captured a little corner of my consciousness and made themselves at home there. In a world constantly demanding my senses, these butterflies have won some precious real estate in the attention economy. Surely that has to mean something. No?
Butterflies hold a special place in my family because of my late grandmother. She told us that, in the afterlife, she would visit us in the form of a white butterfly. Or perhaps I’ve misremembered the color. I can no longer say for certain, because all butterflies remind me of her. She was that special.
She essentially claimed butterflies for our family in much the same way the LGBTQIA+ community claimed the rainbow. No shade to the queer community, of course. It’s simply the first comparison that came to mind.
According to GPT, yellow is often associated with illumination, positivity, and the reassurance that one is on the right path. I’m choosing to interpret these sightings a little differently. To me, the yellow butterfly is a yellow traffic light: a signal to slow down, take stock, and reflect on the road I’m traveling.
Autumn is approaching. Soon, the leaves will turn yellow, and, as they tend to do this time of year, my literary ambitions will begin to stir. Perhaps it’s time I finally put pen to paper and begin chronicling the tales of the traveling male.
It has been about fourteen months since I left my last full-time job as a sterile processing technician.
Until May 2025, I was living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, while working at a surgery center in West Chester. I’d spent more than two years commuting between the two. Before Philadelphia, Reading, Pennsylvania, had been home since 2003.
Then came October 2024, when the most meaningful romantic relationship of my life came to an end. I found myself sleeping on the couch of my best friend’s apartment, about a fifteen-minute walk from my ex’s place in South Philly. I had no savings to speak of and a strong aversion to moving back in with my parents in Reading as I approached my thirtieth birthday.
Something had to change.
I decided to become a traveling sterile processing technician, taking thirteen-week contracts at healthcare facilities across the country, wherever the wind—or, more accurately, the staffing needs of a hospital—might carry me. It seemed to offer the best financial opportunity in my field, with the added benefit of exploring places I’d never otherwise have visited.
Still, the prospect was daunting. I had been raised in a tight-knit family and had rarely spent more than a couple of weeks farther than a few hours from home. I had no idea what awaited me out there, alone on the road.
Through AMN Healthcare, originally known as American Mobile Nurses, I secured my first travel contract at Brown University Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island. The assignment was thirteen weeks long and paid $1,700 a week. My previous job in West Chester had paid me roughly $1,400 every two weeks.
My income was about to more than double.
With approximately $1,000 to my name, I packed my limited belongings into my 2018 Toyota Camry SE, affectionately named Juvia, and left everything familiar behind.
My destination was Providence, Rhode Island, a place I knew almost nothing about. The drive would take roughly five and a half hours.
And so, with little money in my pocket, no real plan beyond the next thirteen weeks, and an aging sense of certainty about how life was supposed to unfold, I hit the road for the first time.
Rhode Island awaited.
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