Firsts

1 Month, 31 days, 744 hours, 44 640 minutes and 2' 678, 400 seconds.

When you say you’ve lived somewhere for one month it doesn’t sound like plenty of time, it even seems like a glimpse of a moment when compared to the entireness that your life has been. Truth be told, that one month, and all of those hours, minutes and seconds in between contain many firsts for you.

That month contains the first time you’ve been away from home for more than 2 weeks at a time without your family. It also marks the first time you’ve called home a place away from home, which still feels as if you were living someone else’s life.

This month you realized how much food do three 21-year-olds actually consume in a week (day) because you had to run to the supermarket at least three times a week. Which is when you valued having a car back home, because having to carry a bag with 10+ things in it for several blocks and for 50+ steps into your apartment made you feel “as if your arm were about to fall”.

It was the first time you danced and sang your heart out up to 4AM. You also considered, for the first time, the possibility of specific light designs resulting in someone feeling as if they were on drugs. You have no proof of this (yet). It was the first time you returned home at 5AM after a night out at a club, which also means it was the first time you had to walk home from somewhere at 4:30 AM when the streets were basically empty and you just hoped that nothing happened to you on the way.

It was the first time you cried from being an ocean away from home, or more precisely 9,615 km away from it. It was the first time you called your mom 10+ times in a row so you could hear her voice telling you everything was going to be okay.

It was the first time you and your friends planned a trip together, and it was the first time you had to catch a bus at 7AM when you couldn’t find where the right stop was. It was the first time that you ran around the city aimlessly for about an hour (you woke up at 5AM so you could give yourself this luxury) without finding a single soul to help you.

It was the first time you lived, cooked, ate, slept, cleaned, laughed, traveled, danced and cried with two fellow humans who are not blood-related to you, but you’re lucky to call friends.

It was the first time you realized how much strength it actually takes to live abroad and away from your family, and you became much more proud of your friends who have done it.

It was the first time you felt as if “creating” was being part of your everyday life, and thus were eternally grateful for the experiences you were having.

It was the first time you understood why home is not a place but a feeling.