Nobody tells you that being first can feel like being alone.
I was the first in my family to graduate college. The first to study abroad. The first to live in another country, travel across Europe, plant myself in a new city not once but twice. The first to cross a six figure net worth consistently, legally. The first to build something out of nothing more than a vision that nobody around me could see yet.
And I want to be clear about something. I am proud of every single one of those things. Deeply, unshakably proud. But pride and loneliness are not mutually exclusive. You can be both at the same time, and nobody really prepares you for that part.
When I graduated, my mom’s side of the family showed up. And that meant something, even with all of the complexity that comes with that relationship. But even in that room full of people who came, I felt the weight of who wasn’t there and what was missing. My sister couldn’t be there. My mother was already gone. And the celebration, as real as it was, had this undercurrent of grief and isolation that nobody could fully see from the outside.
When I prepared to study abroad in Cyprus, they threw me a going away party. It was fun. Genuinely. And I held onto that warmth for a while. But what I know now, having done the work in therapy to actually process my childhood and everything that came with it, is that I was already starting to outgrow spaces that couldn’t grow with me. And the distance that came after wasn’t just geographical. It was inevitable.
I moved to Atlanta. Then to California. And with each move the gap widened. No check-in calls. No support. Just silence from the people who were supposed to be family. When I landed my first six-figure job, I celebrated alone. I didn’t announce it. I didn’t call anyone. Not because I wasn’t proud but because I already knew that the only people who would show up for me were the friends I had built along the way, not the family I was born into.
And right on cue, as soon as the signs of success became visible, the requests started coming in. That’s the part they don’t put in the first gen success story. The moment people can see that you’ve made it, some of the same ones who were absent for every milestone suddenly remember your number.
But here is the thing that sits with me the most. It was never just about the degrees or the salary or the zip codes. I have always been ahead. Long before any of it was validated by money or opportunity, I saw things other people couldn’t see yet.
I had this blog and I was taking high quality photos and writing long, thoughtful captions on Instagram before social media influencing was a career. They laughed. Said I did too much. Now everyone is a content creator.
I had a podcast back when podcasts were just RSS feeds with no video, no studio setup, no algorithm to ride. They didn’t get it. Now everyone has a mic.
I had an online shop selling merch before that was a normal thing for regular people to do. They laughed at that too. Now everyone has a link in their bio.
I was never doing too much. I was doing it first. And there is a very specific kind of lonely that lives in being right before anyone believes you.
What I have learned, slowly and sometimes painfully, is that not everyone is meant to witness every chapter of your life. Some people are in the room for the party but not for the becoming. And the becoming is the most important part. It happens quietly, usually alone, usually without applause, usually while someone nearby is telling you that you’re doing too much.
To every first in their family who has ever celebrated a milestone in a room that didn’t fully understand what it cost you to get there: I see you. The loneliness of the lead is real. So is the pride. Hold both.
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