My Month - and My Year - of Firsts

In a short travel essay written for the compilation An Innocent Abroad, Pico Iyer writes that "the beauty of any first time is that it leads to a thousand others...Every 'first time' opens a door upon a long corridor, down which you walk with the sensation, from experience now, that any other door might fly open at any moment, leading onto another corridor." 

This past month of June - comprised of anniversaries such as One Year since I made quite the life change by moving to San Francisco - has marked a steady series of "firsts." The first of the month was the first 1st to fall on a Monday in 2015. Its first Wednesday, June 3rd marked the first time I've ever flown - or traveled, period - to a different state and back in the same day. After the first week of this stuffed month, I returned from my first trip to see [my dear LA confidante] Scott's version of Dallas, his hometown -- as well as from the first wedding I've attended at which I knew only the bride and groom (oh - and my plus-one!).

These small but rich milestones have felt so adult-ish.

A year ago, I was on the receiving end of my first passive recruitment call. A trusted colleague a few states away was suggesting that I explore a career opportunity in which he envisioned me. The rest was recent history. A year ago, I completed the seemingly impossible trek that was my "clap out," an applause-ridden farewell outside of my home Apple Store. Fourteen days prior, I had painfully delivered my first-ever resignation to a beloved leader and mentor, plus the first company I called home. I had decided to pick up and move - outside of the Greater LA area - for the first time in my life to move to San Francisco. If I could have only dreamed of the long corridor down which this would lead me.

Thanks to LinkedIn, the series of both professional and personal "firsts" has streamed in abundance. I've made my first Work-best friends (#WorkBFFs) and enjoyed my first free lunch menu. I've savored my first tastes of places like Chicago, its infamous Wrigley Field; the VIP view-line and corporate-insides of the Empire Building. I've now held my first sublet, lived with non-parental relatives, and scored a one-year-lease... not just in the unrivaled renting town of San Francisco but in North Beach, no less - all in my first year being here! I'm a half-mile from the ocean for the first time too. I live -- for the first time since high school -- in the same county as a few long-time BFFs; I also live in the same county as my cousin Talia and as such collegiate soulmates as Ryan+Jess for the first time EVER. I've met new soulmates and grown closer with some I never would have guessed, including former colleagues like Taylor and Linds... which led me all the way to my aforementioned trip to Dallas//Wichita Falls. 

Since joining LinkedIn, I've received my first formal software certification, hosted my first 100+ customer webinars, and instructed my first and more of 50+ filled classrooms. I have published my first blog posts on the largest publishing platform on the Internet, I've sat in the presence of my own CEO for the first time [of many to come], and I have sent my first recruiting InMails to prospects in Silicon Valley. It's all come full-circle; the dots have begun to connect now that I'm looking backward.

Thanks LinkedIn. Thanks to Taylor - leading me back to thank Mary and Apple; thank USC, Mom and Dad, and even dear-old David - for opening the door to this endless corridor.

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Another 'first' took place this past weekend in my first visit to Steph’s family home in San Diego; it marked my first getaway with the friends who will forever be my original #workbffs. Never since childhood have I come close to bonding with such a tight group of similarly-cooky, like-minded and complementary women - and I get to work with them everyday. During one of numerous conversations shared poolside about the value and meaning of life and work, we naturally lingered on work - in all of its stressors and glories. Steph shared a statement of initially underrated significance: she said, “Our work is the vessel on which we journey through life."

I’ve been left in a dire, strenuous array of thoughts: which are the vessels by which I am rowing through life at the moment? Which direction am I going? What is on the horizon?

What I landed on is the fact that I don’t have a particular, singular nor well-defined port on the horizon. Rather, I am aboard this one of many vessels traveling for the sake of the journey… and the growth that will come along with it. Perhaps the seas, calm or stormy, are what make our muscles stronger and our boat, at times, weary. There are times when the tide overcomes and my crew [of family and friends] will have to help me row, even steer at times. 

In my first year at Linkedin, in SF and at sea on this new vessel, I have made more new friends than I can count. I joined my first softball team; I have been to my first Outside Lands music festival. I took my first trip to Tahoe; I've jumped out of my first airplane! And for the first time in my adult life, I have absolutely no idea toward what horizon I'm currently headed. 

I also am not worried. For as Pico Iyer said in more words: "the beauty of any first time is that it leads to a thousand others: the first glance eases one toward the first meeting, and then, perhaps, the first kiss and the first love and so much else..."

To my first post in a while, to my year and to many more of countless "firsts"!