IIf you had asked me to describe myself a year ago, this is what I would have said: I am that person who is always late. I could have also said that I am 5’7” and love cilantro, but then you would not have been warned: being friends with me means a lot of waiting. Ugh, sorry in advance.
Then this happened. One day I had a date right before I was going to dinner with friends. When it ended early, I went straight to the restaurant and waited at the bar for everyone. Normally I would have arrived 10 minutes late, drenched in sweat and remorse. I would have been mortified to be the last person to show up and the reason our table was given away to an “entire” party. After telling a bunch of lies to my friends about traffic and first-time Uber drivers, I would have spent the rest of the night berating myself for being, well, me.
My friends had expected nothing less of me either. But that night I was someone else – the picture of cool, sipping a dirty martini with barely a hair out of place. I was early and feeling happy, which was a very strange feeling for me at this point in the evening (before the bread basket). This feeling was too good – I would never go back.
What I never could have guessed was how my overall well-being went hand in hand with breaking this cycle. And it makes sense. How could I ever feel good about myself if I was constantly disappointing myself? Turns out I didn’t need my weekly therapy (which I was always late for anyway), projecting all of these problems onto my mother (classic scapegoat). The solution was right in front of me the whole time: the clock.
I just had to wrestle with it. Twenty-four hours seems like more than enough time to live each day. But that number is reduced to about 17 if you count sleep. Few of us have the bandwidth to function well for that entire time. I have four highly productive hours, usually early in the morning, where I write. In the past, those hours would be spent on social media, the news, and seemingly urgent tasks like cleaning out my sock drawer. But now I use my mornings to get work done so that my afternoons don’t get bogged down like Gatwick Airport on a Friday afternoon. That leaves the hours after lunch to focus on things that don’t require a lot of brain power, like paying bills and getting depressed about them.
I also play tricks on myself. If I have to be somewhere at 7:00, I tell myself it’s 6:45. That way, even if I’m a minute or two late – old habits die hard – I’m still early.
The most important thing is that I drop everything I’m doing an hour before I have to leave the house. I don’t use the time to get dolled up, even though I probably should. Instead, I check the weather (umbrella?), public transportation (will I be surprised?), and mental space (do I even need to go outside?) to get ready for the night.
I’m not perfect. Every once in a while something happens and all my strategies for being on time go to waste. But because it happens so rarely, I don’t immediately jump into the story that I’m failing again. Instead, I’m just honest about why I’m late and move on. Man oh man, is it liberating.
But here’s the thing: When I saw that I could change, I felt empowered to keep going. I started noticing other things about myself that needed a little sprucing up. Have you ever bought a new couch and then realized that everything in the room was in desperate need of an update? Drinking was one of those things for me. When I no longer arrived in a fit of nervousness and sweat, I no longer felt the pull of alcohol the way I once did. That giant chill pill known as a glass or two or three of Rioja was no longer needed in the same way. I’m by no means a teetotaler, but I also don’t wait for last orders. Because I’m more present and engaged, I also have more fun. So much for my long-held theory: He who drinks the most, enjoys the most.
When I stopped being late, I started standing up for myself. It was time.