For The First Timers

A woman in her 30s sits on a bench at the bus stop. Recalling the events of a failed evening, she feels sorry for herself. Her close colleague, a guy she’s liked for some time now, was there at the dinner party. And after much excitement, nervousness, and anticipation of a possible confession, she finds out that he’s already dating somebody else. That his intention for wanting to talk to her in private was not because he was going to confess his feelings for her, but that he was going to confess that it was not her.

She stares down at her phone, sitting at the bus stop, feeling sorry for herself. Replaying scenes of the night in her mind, she feels embarrassed, ashamed even of how things unfolded.

A chance encounter brings a familiar face to the bus stop; a man she ran into for the first time at the dinner party. She didn’t know him, not yet. But he was a familiar stranger. So they talk. Disinhibited by her defeated state, she shares how she’s feeling – embarrassed from the failure of a potential relationship, because she lacked courage, because she was always on defense, never striking first and always just on guard. She felt lost, left behind; unskilled and unequipped for thriving in this life. In her 20s, this would’ve been okay. But now at 30, she felt like she still didn’t know what she was doing, or that she was doing things the wrong way. She pauses and stares blankly again.

The man, sitting on the bench now about two seats away from her, points out that she mentioned “30” [years old] three times in her short speech. “That’s the neocortex calamity,” he says. She glances at him, confused and intrigued. “Twenty, thirty. The part in charge of those time-related concepts is the neocortex of the brain. Cats don’t have a neocortex… to them, time is only the current moment… ‘because I’m 20,’ ‘since I’m 30,’ and ‘because I’ll be 40 soon’ – the only species that confines itself to partitions of time like that is the human species… Only humans attack age as a weakness, and we spend money and emotions because of it… Thirty years, forty years. For cats, it’s the same thing everyday – a new day, a blank slate.”

She stares at him and thinks: it’s strange. His strange words, more than anything else that day, comforted me.

The bus is arriving soon. They get up. “I was comforted by your words. Thank you for telling me about the neocortex” she says. He faces her; she looks down the street, looks for the bus, avoids his gaze. With a shy smile forming, she continues, “I think this life is a bit of a failure…” Now feeling a bit uplifted she looks at him, “but I’ll try my best.” She extends her hand towards him. He looks at her hand then reaches for a handshake, saying “I wish you the best of luck,” their eyes meet and he continues, “after all, we are all living this life for the first time.”

Time slows. And feelings surface.

That’s a scene from an episode of the Kdrama “Because This is My First Life.” Adapted for the purpose of this blog post. I liked that scene so much I decided it’s worth writing about and sharing. It was comforting and uplifting at the same time. For someone who sometimes sets himself up to such high standards (and, consequentially, such a high place to fall from), and then forgets about it, it was a good reminder. A gentle nudge and tap on the back. “Hey, it’s okay.”

“We are all living this life for the first time.”

Yet we act like we know every rule and playbook, and even worse we expect ourselves to get things right almost all the time, from the get-go. Like we’ve somehow rehearsed everything prior to actually living this life.

Life is hard, they say. So be easy on yourself. Mistakes and challenges can be heavy. Best approach them lightly. Don’t focus too much on the outcome, focus on the process. If you get things wrong, it’s okay. We don’t expect a first-timer in any sport or endeavor to know all the rules, to not stumble and fall, to not look awkward at times. We’re generous at forgiving, if we know it’s their first time. Oh, and in case you forgot, this is our first time living this life, you know.

In the grand scheme of our lives, I think we’re all doing alright.

*   *   *

She gets to her apartment, her new home. It was a long day. But she carried a lightness and a smile. It was a long week: struggles with her writing career, needing to move out of her home because of family dynamics, and now rejected by the guy she liked. But despite all that, she looks back on the past days, the past year, and she can’t help but be surprised. She’s amazed, even, at how she’s handled things. Her small wins, and what she’s accomplished so far. A sense of hope and possibility starts to creep up. She goes to bed thinking:

It’s not what I imagined my life would be like at 30, but for a 30^th year I have never lived before, it’s not that bad. ~

*   *   *