3:07 pm -- Firsts and Lasts

I think we, as a society, put a lot of emphasis on firsts.

The first day of school. The first word. The first movie. The first heartbreak. The first blog post. The first apartment. The first paycheck.

And it really does make sense. Firsts are easy to celebrate because they're terrifically exciting. Someone takes a picture or marks the date. We know, while we're living them, that we'll probably remember them.

And firsts are important. Don't get me wrong. I remember many of mine.

First day of high school:

I wore a blue-and-white striped top with navy shorts and white sneakers. I had just cut my hair above my shoulders. With my glasses on, I had a striking resemblance to Edna Mode, actually. My big brother thought it would be funny to send his friends to wait outside my classrooms, take photos of me, and surround me with flashing cameras between periods, pretending to be paparazzi. I spent my first day kind of embarrassed but also quite amused.

First serious away-from-home camp.

The summer after eighth grade, I attended a Harvard speech and debate workshop.

I was desperately homesick and cried quite a bit, even though I'd made wonderful friends. I barely had an appetite. Every evening after dinner, they handed each of us a banana as a sweet treat. (Of course the sweet treat had to be healthy--it's Harvard.) I didn't want to eat mine, but for whatever reason at the time, I also didn't want to throw it away. So I would tuck the banana into my closet. The next night, another banana joined it. And the next. They slowly browned in my closet, but I was too mentally preoccupied to remember to eat or throw them out. Two weeks later, the room attendant gently knocked on my door to ask why my entire room smelled like bananas.

First high school dance.

My mom has very clear rules about modesty: no strapless dresses, straps at least two fingers wide, hemlines no shorter than a dollar bill above the knee, necklines no lower than four fingers below the collarbone, backs fully covered, no sheer fabric, no slits, no cut-outs.

Finding a dress that checked every box felt nearly impossible. So, I wore a suit. It wasn't even a fashionable suit. I was more like Alfred from Batman.

There were countless other firsts, too. The first competition. The first time I sang on stage.

The first drawing I made that felt like it actually looked the way I imagined it.

We treasure firsts because they break the hum of ordinary life. It's natural. But I think in our glorification of firsts, we have a habit of forgetting the seconds. The thirds. The two-hundredths. They become routine simply because they've happened before. But when we start forgetting, we stop treasuring, and we forget that one of those ordinary moments will eventually become the last.

I wonder:

If I had known it was the last time I built a styrofoam fort in my old house,

If I had known it was the last time my brother and I made up fantasy stories in the car,

If I had known it was the last time I dressed up as Snow White,

Would I have lingered a little longer? Would I have tried harder to memorize the feeling?

When something is no longer the first, repetition tends to disguise rarity. The first snowfall in my home felt magical, but the fiftieth snowfall felt expected and everyday. The snow itself didn't changed, but my awareness has.

It's nearly August now. I move to college on September 15.

Lately, I've found myself noticing things that once felt so ordinary they were pretty much invisible. I've been helping at my neighbor's alpaca farm, tossing hay into feeders and laughing as curious noses nudge my palms, looking for treats. I've spent afternoons with their horses, braiding long dark hair and kissing velvety muzzles. I've knelt in barns playing with piglets that tumble over each other like wind-up toys and goats that insist on nibbling on my hair.

I don't think I've appreciated these moments in the past nearly as much as I have this year.

But now that I can almost see the edge of this chapter, they feel different. Ordinary has become so very precious.

I saved a reel on Instagram: "You seem pretty homesick for a girl who's wanted to get away her whole life."

Since freshman year, I've wanted to leave. I wanted new cities, new museums, new bookstores, new people. I wanted to see the world. And I still do. But in spending so much time looking away, I forgot to notice the landscape beneath my feet.

The mountains that have framed every drive home. The lake that catches fire under the sunset's rosy haze. Dumbo, the doe who wanders into our yard every morning to check if I set out carrots. Flower, the chipmunk who waits each morning for the sunflower seeds I scatter before breakfast. The sweetness of pine carried through cool morning air after it rains.

These were never extraordinary moments to me because of how many times I've experienced them. But I think that this is the tragedy of familiarity: we stop seeing what never stopped being beautiful. It takes a looming last to illuminate what was always there.

So when I get to college, I don't want to only celebrate the firsts. There will be plenty of them, and they will be exciting, yes: The first roommate. The first lecture. The first friends.

But after the novelty fades, I don't want to let my wonder fade with it. I want to notice the walk I've taken a hundred times. The coffee shop barista who learns my order. The friend who saves me a seat. The tree outside my dorm. One day, without any announcement, those ordinary Tuesdays will become memories and lasts too.

I've come to think that a meaningful life isn't built from a collection of spectacular firsts.

I'm learning how to fall in love with the hundredth time just as deeply as the first.

cheers,

Emma