I’m… late?
March 27th, 2008I have this overwhelming feeling of being late, most of the time, all of a sudden.
Yesterday morning, I woke up at 4am, took one look at the clock and convinced myself that the clock was wrong and I was late for the bus. I cross-referenced my phone and freaked out because, in my head, the clock on my phone was wrong, too. And so was the clock on the coffee maker, and the clock on the VCR was more wrong than usual.
I was up and most of the way ready for work when I realized that, no, all the clocks were not, actually, wrong… it was really 4am and I could go back to sleep for another hour-plus. Which I did.
This morning, the same thing, woke up at 4, but I knew that all the clocks in the house weren’t mysteriously wrong, so I went back to sleep. However, once I got to the bus stop (on time), I again convinced myself that I was late. Rather, the bus was late… It wasn’t really late, but in my head it was. Not only late, but not even coming, or maybe I WAS late and I had missed it. The other bus that stops at my bus stop came first, so, of course, my bus isn’t coming, I’m going to be late for work.
I wasn’t late for work, despite my conviction that the bus was running later and later and that there was no possible way that I could be on time.
All my meetings have me frantic that I’m going to be late. I haven’t been, but I have been exactly on time for pretty much all of them… and when I don’t have a meeting, I still have this nagging feeling that I should be hurrying and that I’m (not just going to be, but already) late for something.
This is very difficult for me, since I am a notoriously EARLY person. I’m the one who shows up on conference calls 5 minutes early; who shows up to meet up with friends 10-15 minutes early and waits patiently; who couldn’t get a letter of reference stating that I was always on time, so instead got one written to convey that I am never late. But this isn’t a situation where I’m fretting that "OMG, OMG, I’m going to be ON TIME", I am convinced that I am not only going to be, but am already late for things that don’t even necessarily exist.
