Charlotte, about to start her last year of high school, says she’s starting to have her last firsts: last first day of school.

Or this could be her “first last” too, school-wise. Last homecoming dance.

“First last” and “last first” is a funny thought, a Möebius strip, different conditions but connected.

The worst is the lasts you didn’t realize were the last. Or the last you know is a last but you can’t enjoy it because you’re too aware it’s your last. Like my last drink: no enjoyment in that. Couldn’t think about it too much, didn’t even want to enjoy it.

Then there are some firsts you get deeper into life. Like first meeting someone in person after you’ve known them online. Did that with my new client yesterday. She’s Australian, her boss Irish, and that woman’s boss is Spanish. We all work for a German software company. That feels good. Shaking hands and sitting together, embodied.

I would stand with Charlotte at the end of our street and wait for the school bus. She would stand a good four or five steps away, as if to distance herself from me. From a very early age she was like that. I don’t remember the last time we stood there waiting like that and it doesn’t matter. She started driving in to school as soon as she could.

There was the last time at the middle school I remember. We attended after-school events and parent meetings there for years, and then one time I realized that would be the last time. Sitting in the small gymnasium on a foldout chair looking out the window, all of it skirting by. Wondering, did I enjoy it as much as I could have (knowing I didn’t). Maybe next time.

Sometimes wondering darkly if that was the last time I’d see someone.

Or the thought, “you should live each day like it’s your last,” which is noble but exhausting and kind of bleak.

Instead I live each day not knowing, like most people. Like our pets, who don’t think so hard about futures and pasts. For them life is a Möebius strip too, though not twisted like that. The firsts and lasts touch just like anything; maybe don’t try to separate them or think about it too much.

Live each day like it’s your first, and don’t dwell on the lasts.

Categories: Creative Nonfiction, Memoir, parenting

Tags: Creative Nonfiction, Memoir, Nostalgia