“You represent yourself” I heard over and over one too many times. I didn’t get the true meaning of a first impression. As a 12-year-old, doesn’t-care-about-anything, 8th-grader the last thing I cared about was if I wore the same t-shirt three days in a row with chocolate stain that you couldn’t miss and shoes that yelled I don’t care. 
    Everyone has that distant family that just isn’t quite right. Whether they have those weird hobbies that no other family you know has, or you don’t get along with any of the kids and the parents always have something to say. It’s not even that I am related to all these cousins but they’re more like those fake ‘cousins’ but are really just family friends.
    The first year that my Grandparents moved to their condo in Naples, FL they decided to start having the annual ‘family reunion’. Since they were only originally planning to spend winters there, they moved into a old person, doctor office like smelling, fifty-five and over retirement community. 
    I vaguely remember waking up struggling to open my eyes. I was in such a deep sleep and so exhausted that my eyes hurt to open. I had to roll over because I couldn’t stand the sound of my alarm clock beeping any longer. I couldn’t believe that I was reading 4:30 a.m. and I was about to start my day of traveling. The last thing to cross my mind was what I was going to wear to the airport. Seeing as I was going to Florida for a week all of my nice clothes were packed up in my suitcases and already in the car. As I swung my legs from the bed and placed them on the colder, hard wood floors I looked for something to wear. I was planning on dressing just for the flight to be comfortable on the plane.
    As I searched the floor I found my old nautica sweatpants. They have definitely been through a lot over the years but they were my favorite, I proceeded to put on a white t-shirt and a Boston College sweatshirt. When I walked downstairs, both of my brothers were dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, my Dad was in khakis and my Mom was already in Florida. For the first time, of this trip I heard my Dad comment on me wearing sweatpants. My Dad is the type of guy who only wears sweatpants around the house or to bed, only wears jeans if he’s working around the yard or doing maintenance in the house, but would only wear khakis out in public. “You represent yourself” he said to me. I’ve heard it throughout my life time and time again and never thought anything of it, especially not on the way to the airport at 4:30 in the morning.
    Once we got through the whole processes of traveling to the airport and landing, we got the rental car and drove to the condo. By the time we got there it was nearly 3 o’clock in the afternoon. The initial reuniting with old friends and distant cousins was not as awkward as I anticipated. I ended up changing in the back of the car on the quick 50-minute drive from Fort Meyers to Naples. I didn’t say anything but I was glad my Dad convinced me to change. Both of my parents constantly remind my brothers and I about how important first impressions are and how you are perceived by the rest of the world. It’s just the little things that they constantly are bugging us about like clothes that are wrinkled or even taking your hat off at dinner that they seem to give off different impressions. “It looks like you don’t care” my Mom constantly said to us, but it’s true.