Five minutes early or ten minutes late

When I refer to my late mother it seems wrong. She was never late.

My mother was a stickler for punctuality. As a consequence she was usually early for things. So was my father. I think it was at my father’s funeral though it could have been hers that the congregation was gathered waiting for the coffin. Someone joked that my mother would have been appalled (and probably left) as the funeral was running late.

NB this was not an uncalled for joke. The congregation was filled with friends and family. I was chatting with them to keep spirits up even though mine were down. I like the idea that it was terribly wrong for either my mother or father to be late for their own funeral.

I have inherited their hatred of being late. Professionally, I tend to think I need to be five minutes early or I am ten minutes late. I recently read: “If you’re early you’re on time, if you’re on time you’re late, and if you’re late you’re left!” It was annoyingly written as “your” not “you’re” but, in work terms, I think the warning is good.

My BFF and her husband always used to be late for things. Recently she has been surprising me by arriving on time. Meanwhile I struggle more than I ever did to organise myself so that I am not in danger of being late.

I get terribly distracted. Despite having set a variety of alarms on my phone, e.g. ‘Get out of bed, washed, dressed’ ‘Get going now’ ‘LATE!!!’, I will delay because I am doing something. Then something else.

Yesterday MyMan arrived early. Well I thought it was early because it was sooner than I expected. However, I may have forgotten what time he was supposed to be coming. Or it might be that I had started watching a film that should have lasted my waiting time for him and then had been so often distracted I had to keep restarting the dvd. I loved that he wasn’t late. So often in the past boyfriends have disappointed me by their lack of punctuality..

Perhaps my desire not to be late is because I have little patience. Particularly as a patient. I may have blogged this before but I hate waiting. If I want something, I want it NOW! I don’t mean this in a petulant shopping way. It’s more that over the last two years I have had so many tests and often had to wait for the all important results which will determine diagnosis / treatment / progress. 

Tomorrow I will start waiting for my pacmans count results. I don’t expect them to arrive sooner than that. Blood test results are not like MyMan. They don’t usually turn up early. However, if they don’t come to me tomorrow they will be late. I hate lateness.