My First

When I first started dating my current partner, we had a talk about our firsts. And surprisingly, for two teenagers in a town that’s known for underage parties and most people over the age of 15 to lose their virginity, we didn’t. We would be each other’s firsts. Not to say that we have done it, but that if we were to, we would be each other’s firsts.

And being someone’s first is always a concept I have truly taken into consideration, as it applies to multiple areas in life.

Your experiences with whatever “firsts” you get in life will pave the road to ideas and expectations to everything else, even in some cases shaping your attitude and emotional reactions.

A great example of this is online gaming. I recently restarted playing this game called League of Legends. I stopped playing that much and didn’t really turn to the community due to being harassed for how poorly I played. I was new at the game, having only joined about it as my friends were playing it. (This sounds like the start of so many stories, now that I think of it.)

In any case, my first experience to the game was negative due to how much people kept criticizing me on the game and would rather blame me for making mistakes instead of helping me where I was bad at. And if you are wondering why I quit after a few encounters with this is due to attachment and emotional investment. If you have some prized possession that you absolutely adore due to its significance in your life and it were to be destroyed or stolen right from your eyes, you would be in a down swing of emotions for sure.

And that’s exactly what happened to me. I was in a down swing, and it really bothered me, as I personally strive to be accepted by everyone. It’s nothing that I intentionally try to do, but it happens quite a lot. It’s a pretty big part of my character, as Alayna can attest to.

But my point being is this: be embrace of your “firsts” and other’s “firsts.” People have the power to help each other write their own stories for them. If you introduced someone into snowboarding and helped them through the basics of learning and encouraged them enough, they can become a totally different person than their previous being. Life is about new experiences and what people come with those new experiences.

So make sure that you are a good experience.

– J.E.