If punctuality were a personality trait, I’d be…well, I wouldn’t have it. I’m the girl who texts “On my way” while still blow drying my hair. I’m the coworker who joins 5 minutes late but always with the best intentions and all the answers. Sure, I’m a mess but my lateness is wrapped up in love, chaos, and a dash of sass. This is probably one of the few things I can’t even blame on my ADHD. It’s just me. Always just a few minutes behind.

I’m never late because I don’t care. I truly believe I can shower, blow-dry my hair, answer emails and/or texts, and fold laundry in 15 minutes. Spoiler alert I cannot. I’m just an optimistic time traveler, I guess. I also get distracted by the whole shiny object syndrome I’ve talked about before. A dog does something cute, there goes 10 minutes of me needing to love them for it. A candle went out? Now I need to figure out why, so I know if the house is going to burn down. I’m spending no less than 20 minutes trying to see if there’s a specific gust of air in that area that could cause a fire. That one drawer of socks that has some that haven’t been matched? At that very moment it needs to be fixed expeditiously. I always have the best intentions. Just the worst executions. I want to be fully present and not frazzled and my brain thinks, if I can just get this done I’ll enjoy the time more.

I’ve tried the whole “lie to myself trick” and set my clocks ahead 30 minutes. I think in the future I will thank myself for it, then I remember I have that little bit of extra time because I changed the clocks and well there goes that extra time I tried to create. I typically try to have my clothes, accessories etc. all picked out ahead of time which does save me a lot of time. It’s one of the few tricks that I tried that I’ve been able to implement and keep. Always get it done the night before I go to bed. I also set many alarms on a few different devices. This way I must remove myself from whatever has distracted me and go to said device to turn off the alarms. This does work most of the time but there’s been a few times when I went right back to my distraction. I’m typically pretty open about being late with most people so they know to expect it. People who know me have also been known to give me different times to be places than the actual starting time for said reasons so that always helps.

The archetypes to t lahete person aka people who get me. There’s different kinds of late people, and I love them all. Some are easy to deal with and some not so much. There’s the optimistic multitasker. They believe feeding the dog, writing a novel, and folding the laundry can all happen before it’s time to leave the house. Then there’s the over thinker. They spend 20 minutes debating what vibe they want to go with and then another 20 minutes trying to match that vibe. Typically, they give up by the end and just go with what feels most comfortable. Next is the coffee detour queen. They typically only run a little late because caffeine is a moral obligation but when they stop, they usually offer to pick you up something too, so it definitely helps with the fact that you were waiting on them. Lastly there’s the storyteller. They are always 30 minutes plus late but they always have a great story to go with it. They drop their phone and swerve trying to reach it but then get pulled over by a hot cop type story and by the end you’re usually laughing at them or with them.

What’s most important about being the friend or loved one of a late person is to try and remember being late doesn’t mean they don’t care. It means they’re juggling life, love, and laundry and have a skewed concept of time. They try to fix it, to avoid it but it just doesn’t work because they just can’t become a robot of punctuality. It’s all about finding playful hacks to get around their crappy sense of time. We want to be respectful of your time, we just have a hard time managing it. Just remember when we show up, it’s with the best of intentions, a story to tell, and maybe even some snacks. 

XOXO,

Savi Monroe