5_A look at lateness
Or a note to the habitually tardy, from the other side.
The picture is crystal clear: my dad standing, jacket and leather shoes on, his characteristic wide stance, car keys in hand, in the small green entrance foyer of our house. He’d impatiently point out my inability to be ready on time when leaving for family gatherings.
My rebuttal: we, without fail, were always the first ones there. Among the only guests to actually arrive on time to a party.
The way I’d try to convince him then is the way I try to convince myself now every time I start getting ready for an appointment about two hours ahead of time and look up the way there the night before: that chances are that absolutely no one will miss you – or even notice - if you’re a little bit late.
But who is no one? I realise that I speak of the possibility of this indefinite entity as something whose existence I am certain of, but that all at once is so remote to me. Somewhere out there, usually closer than I might hope, no one cares what I am doing, where I am, and why I may be late.
This person – I have come to accept that such traits are inherited – is not me. I deeply care when people are late. I take it as a direct insult.
When someone is unreasonably (read: somewhere beyond that excusable ten-minute mark) late, their negligence reflects a sort of disrespect, whether or not they are aware of it. The person waiting could also have used those fifteen, thirty, forty minutes to do something more valuable to them.
I suppose it comes with age, though maybe not to everyone. The high school days when I could count down the minutes to the end of an eighty-minute period are long over. These days, I could spend two hours negotiating where to place the comma in a sentence and still be unconvinced of my decision. I’m not sure when, but at some point time became very important to me. Rather, I became acutely aware of it.
It is by the same token that I try to respect other peoples’ time. Maybe no one noticed, but I published my third piece in this series a few weeks late on account of my summer holidays and lack of access to a computer. I’m usually one to minimise things, but the idea of being late, of potentially disappointing my readership, tormented me. As did being unable to deliver the cheque for my apartment deposit for months, despite my landlord’s apparent disinterest in the matter.
Memory is a fickle thing, and if I look back, I think that I used to do things, to show up, but - more importantly - to do so in the right way and at the right time, for other people. Perhaps in a fear of disappointing others, maybe even of repercussion, that I learned in my childhood. I think that I am beginning to understanding that this need is no longer tied to external factors, that it’s gone beyond that. It’s become something that I have to do for myself, whether or not that no one is really bothered. For my own peace of mind, for my own need to act in accordance to an image of me that has been long in the making within the hearth of my very own imagination.
To be clear, I do not claim that my dad or anybody else who so ardently strives and expects punctuality does so for the same reasons. Perhaps that is for the best, though I do wonder if it’s as energy-intensive for them, too.