Firsts
On Why it's So Scary To Be First; A First Post from Saltwater Collective
There is an old motto that runs, âIf at first you donât succeed, try, try again.â This is nonsense. It ought to readââIf at first you donât succeed, quit, quit at once.â
If you canât do a thing, more or less, the first time you try, you will never do it. Try something else while there is yet time.
- Stephen Leacock, 1917
First means winning, means getting gold, means not losing to your rivals (peers, friends, and enemies alike), means impressing your mum so she can brag about you to all her friends and your entire extended family on Facebook.
Being the first one across the finish line elicits a euphoria that few other experiences can beat. Whether youâre winning the egg and spoon race in your primary school sports day, or being the first in your friend group to get married, knowing youâre doing something no one around you has done always feels so satisfying.
When you spend your life coming second, you yearn for nothing else more than to come first, just once. You imagine the glory, the justified arrogance youâll be able to conduct yourself with.
Look, as you reach new heights and change the norm and realise youâre actually disturbing the water, taking the plunge with no oneâs example to follow. Youâre afraid, suddenly, of what lies in the undiscovered depths beneath the surface.
Coming first is sometimes terrifying: youâre never sure what to expect, you worry it might not be what you hope it will be, youâre petrified of it all going tits up. Perhaps there is a safety in coming second, or third, and last even. It is comforting, to know that someone has come before you, can show you the way to success. You may not have been the first but at least youâre not the first to f*** it up.
Either way, itâs generally understood that the first time is always the hardest. It can be both excuse (âsorry, itâs my first timeâ will almost always receive an understanding smile and a âoh thatâs okay, youâre doing better than you thinkâ) and reassurance (âof course iâm bad, iâve never done this before. next time will be betterâ). Now you know yourself a little better the next time will be a little easier, the time after that is a piece of cake.
Taking the plunge is never a bad thing, as scary as it is.
no one else has even opened a draft on here. am i getting ahead of myself? what if this is a really really bad first post and I embarrass everyone elseâŠ
â Me, in the minutes I spend hesitating over the âPublishâ button
We talk about firsts often. They are usually romantic or sexual: first kiss, first love, first heartbreak, first time (a euphemism so vague yet always perfectly understood). Tinged with awkwardness and a touch of a blush, but they swell with a sense of victory, of achievement and experience.
But the biggest firsts crowd our childhood, when we are so young we donât even remember those most important firsts. We are mere babes when we experience our first breath, our first word (mum and dad themselves competing to be the first one named), first laugh, first step; so young when we find our first friend, first detention, first school trip. We, as children, cannot move for new experiences!
Most people seem to think you run our of firsts after you grow up. Adulthood is doing the same things you do every day, repeating in an endless cycle. But newness survives in all those every day firsts, the ones we donât think of. The first shift at a new job, first time cooking that recipe you found on Instagram, first time annotating in a book (as one of those readers who thought writing in books was blasphemy, writing in a book that first time opened a floodgate for me. Now i cannot STOP scribbling all over the pages), first time watching a film your friend recommended to you, first post on the blog you and your friends have been putting off for, like, 3 yearsâŠ
â Fun Fact! : Hannah opened this page for the first time in August 2024. It has been a full 12 months since and we have yet to publish a single post. Until today!!!!
I think perhaps the most fun we can have as adults is striving for these firsts. Go out of your way to do things youâve never done before. As cheesy as it sounds, there really is no time like the present! So do that thing youâve been wanting to do, go to that place you wanted to go, post that post you were meant to post a year ago. The world is, and I donât say this lightly, your oyster. đŠȘ
Firsts is your welcome to our little đSaltwater Collectiveđ here on Substack.
Hello! I am Eru, one of the silly and less-than-punctual writers here at Saltwater. Unfortunately, I like writing didactic, slightly ranty opinion pieces in a tone that is somewhat pompous and condescending, however these seas will be full of much more intelligent and creative pieces than mine.
I hope you will sit along the shore and feel the ocean breeze as you wait for the waves to wash ashore some gorgeous poetry and prose pieces, maybe a cultured review of film or music or literature, and perhaps some more silly little opinions and thoughts from the lot of us here at Saltwater Collective.
SEA you next time! Haha!
yours,
Bea Eru x
Author: Bea Eru
References
Stephen Leacock, Frenzied Fiction (1918), p. 245.