Firsts and Lasts

He transformed a theatre into a party. I was, without a doubt, the oldest person at the Macklemore concert, having camped out for hours in the encroaching cold to stand at the stage, front row. I've been to countless concerts. Like a lot of music lovers, I mark events and years--first time I saw Springsteen at the Meadowlands, first time I saw Bob Dylan, first time I saw R.E.M.--by the music I went to see. Like those for whom life has a constant soundtrack, the passage of years is traced by songs and mix tapes and CDs, and whole decades can slip by when I hear the first bars of Your Dad Did by John Hiatt because I remember the strange mix of deja vu-type awe and excitement the first time I heard it. But without a doubt, the Macklemore show in Charlottesville, Virginia, was the best concert I have ever been to. Me, the white-haired lady in the front row amidst a writhing mosh pit of kids waiting for the guy to crowd surf, stripping down to a tank top in the heat of the place. But best of all, it was a first. Not only because I had never been to a Macklemore concert before, but because I took my youngest daughter and her best friend, who has become like my other daughter, to their first--but undoubtedly not their last--club concert.

I love this rapper for a lot of reasons--his storytelling, weaving his struggle with sobriety through his lyrics, his sense of humor (he did write "The Penis Song")--one of which is his adoration of baseball. Like music, for the fan of the Boys of Summer, you mark the passage of time by games. My first World Series game--I was THERE . . . times you saw homers hit by your heroes. I would never have imagined, in my adopted city of Richmond, Virginia, that I would become a fan of minor league ball. This is the team that plays toss the toilet seat on the plunger between innings. But taking in a game now means going with my dad or one of my kids and sitting in the evening sun, the beer and the pretzels, the noise, doing the wave, talking about nothing, yelling at the ump for bad calls, aimless nights of companionship. I don't think my dad can even see the ball anymore, but it doesn't matter. In the stadium it's about something more.

Live long enough  and you mark your life by firsts. First time you fell in love, first time you were kissed, first prom, first baseball game, first concert, first Broadway show, first  . . .  first. Live and love long enough and you have other firsts. First death, first dead body (Irish wake), first heartbreak, first time you shaved a dear friend's head because they have cancer, first eulogy you deliver, first marriage (some of us do it more than once), first  . . .  first . . . first. I've battled Crohn's disease so long, I mark time by the passage of my disease, first hospitalization, first surgery, first time I . . .

But it struck me, there watching Macklemore crowd surf, that as long as you aren't marking your lasts, that it's a good thing. You're still living. It's the people who withdraw from life, who start marking their lasts, who don't ever go to the ballpark anymore because hell, it's just easier to watch on cable, who stop living and seem to just pass time. My doctors always seem surprised--just a little--that I haven't stopped fighting. Most people, I think, would be tired of the battle. But I keep on. I'm not done with my firsts. Maybe I'll be seventy and crowd surfing.

I realize, too, there are some "lasts" that you prefer to bid farewell to. Sobriety for those in the throes of addiction is marked by the last drink. Lord knows there are aspects to my battle with Crohn's I don't want to repeat. I'd like to not have my heart broken again--but I know that one's not in my hands. I'd rather not bury anyone I love. Ever. Again. I'm done with religion because of some "lasts." Life hands you "last times" you'd rather not have.

But as long as you pick yourself up and go searching for new firsts, you're still in the game. Firsts and lasts . . . and all the living in between.

Hear the music live.

Do the wave.

Crowd surf.

Dance.

Dance harder.

Laugh louder.

Love. Out. Loud.

Any new firsts in your life?