I'm standing somewhere I shouldn't be, doing something I told myself I'd never do.
My heart's racing. Not from excitement. From the realization that I just crossed a line I drew myself.
The question that got me here echoes in my head: "There's a first time for everything, right?"
Except this time, the answer should have been no.
Let me back up. Because that question has saved me more times than I can count.
I'm seven years old with a screwdriver and a remote control car in pieces on the floor. My hands are steady. My focus is absolute. I'm taking it apart to see how it works, and I will put it back together exactly the way it was.
Hours later, it's done. Perfectly reassembled. Maybe even fixed if it was broken.
My sister walks by and shakes her head. She's used to this by now.
That level of focus, that curiosity that won't quit until it understands, that's been with me since I can remember. Like a cat with a laser pointer, except my laser is whatever I'm trying to figure out that day.
Fast forward to 8th grade.
Exams are coming. My sister's seniors, the ones in my class, pull her aside.
"You need to distract your brother. Stop him from studying. He's going to take first place again."
She comes home ready to execute the plan. Finds me sitting on the couch doing nothing. Not a book in sight.
"Aren't you studying?"
"Nah, I'm good."
I always was. Not because I was naturally gifted. Because I absorbed everything the first time I heard it in class. One listen, months ago, and it stuck. During exams, I was just jogging my memory back up to speed.
First place. Every time.
She still tells that story. Still can't believe I never studied.
But here's what she didn't see: I was studying. Just not the way anyone else did. I was listening with a focus so complete that nothing escaped.
That's how my mind works. Has always worked.
The problem with thinking differently is connecting with people who don't.
My intellect, my understanding, it's always been on a different level. Not bragging. Just stating the fact that's made my life harder than it needed to be.
I don't have many friends. I can count them on one hand. The ones I chose to keep, I keep intentionally.
It's not that I don't like new friends. It's that most people operate on a wavelength I can't tune into. And they can't tune into mine.
So I end up in trenches. Alone. Learning coding alone. Design alone. Marketing alone. Everything alone.
But the curiosity doesn't stop just because I'm isolated. If anything, it gets stronger.
Somewhere along the way, I developed a question.
I didn't even realize I was asking it until a couple years ago. But it had been there, running in the background, for years.
Whenever I was curious about something I hadn't tried yet, the question would appear:
There's a first time for everything, right?
And in the next moment, I'd be doing it.
No hesitation. No overthinking. Just action.
That question became my antidote to anxiety. My escape from destructive overthinking. My way back to clarity when my mind spiraled.
I'd shrug my shoulders, say those magic words, and suddenly my mind would empty of all the noise. The paralysis would lift. I'd move.
It worked every time.
Until it didn't.
I'm standing somewhere I shouldn't be, doing something I told myself I'd never do.
I used the question. It worked like it always does. My mind emptied. I moved forward.
But this time, there was a boundary. One I drew myself. One that mattered.
There were certain lines I said I wouldn't cross. Not even "just to try." Not even "for the first time's sake."
And yet here I am. On the wrong side of that line.
The moment I cross it, something shifts. Not relief. Not curiosity satisfied.
Regret.
Pure, immediate, self-directed hate.
The question worked. But it shouldn't have.
I've crossed my own boundaries more than once since then. Each time, I hate myself for it.
Because the question doesn't discriminate. It treats all curiosity the same. It doesn't ask if the first time is worth having. It just asks if there's a first time.
And the answer is always yes.
But some first times aren't experiments. They're mistakes.
Here's what I know now that I didn't know when I was seven with that screwdriver:
Curiosity is a superpower. But only when it has guardrails.
The question, "There's a first time for everything, right?" has gotten me further than most people my age. It's put me in more trenches, taught me more skills, pushed me past more fear.
But it's also taken me places I regret. Crossed lines I shouldn't have crossed. Created first times I wish I could undo.
As an introvert, socially anxious, overthinking person, that question has helped me reframe and pick up confidence when I needed it most.
But confidence without boundaries isn't confidence. It's recklessness.
So now I ask a second question before I act:
"Is this a first time I want to have?"
Most of the time, the answer is still yes. The curiosity is still worth following. The trench is still worth entering.
But sometimes, the answer is no.
And learning to hear that no, learning to respect my own boundaries even when curiosity is screaming, that's been harder than any skill I've taught myself.
The remote control car was easy to put back together.
Some things you take apart don't go back the same way.