Time Marches On

When I was five years old I had my birthday party at a place called Bonanza. Bonanza was a steakhouse chain and did not last long in a community that thrived on family restaurants with really good food. Still I loved that place, for my five year old palette it was just perfect. I was very excited for my big day and remember the party well. My Auntie Sue and her friend Trisha dressed as clowns, my birthday cake was a chocolate square with chocolate frosting, a whipped cream border and four cherries-one on each corner of the cake. Mmmm I can practically taste it. I had friends from preschool, the neighborhood and of course children of my mom's friends. It was a great day, but it started a little rough. I have no recollection of what led up to the party, after all I was five, but my memory of that fine summer day starts in the Bonanza parking lot. We were running late--as usual--and pulled into the parking lot after the party was scheduled to start. I was okay with it, until I looked out the window and saw that the car on the right belonged to my mom's friend Jeanie. Jeanie was the person who was always, very unfashionably late for everything. It was her claim to fame in my five year old mind, and there sat her station wagon--empty--she was already at the party. I remember saying to my mom "We are so late, even Jeanie is already here!" I was late for my own birthday party and the memory is still with me. You can't change history--WE WERE LATER THAN JEANIE!

Fast forward 32 years (well 31 years 10 months and 2 days, but who's counting?) and here I am. I am almost always late and while I could pretend it is directly related to that sunny August day in 1978, but that would be a stretch at best. I am a grown woman and I take responsibility for my perpetual tardiness. The thing is there are people who are never late, I mean they can get up in the morning, run 5 miles, take a shower, make pancakes and eggs for their kids, do a round of Meals on Wheels, remove a splinter from their cat's paw while using the other hand to write their memoirs and they still arrive at work promptly at 8:00! Of course there are the people who are late and are okay with it, they don't consider it disrespectful or irresponsible, but I do! I think I should be on time for things which, as you can imagine, is quite troublesome for someone who is always late. To make matters worse, I am someone who wakes up every single day with the firm belief, the sincere thought, that today I will be on time. I start my day with the distinct feeling that I am the person who is usually on time, and each morning at some point something shakes my belief, I get a dose of reality--perhaps a peek at the clock--and it absolutely rocks my world. I go from laid-back super-sweet Aimee to a raving lunatic--someone most of you would not recognize. I get flustered--say to my kids about 80 times in one breath "We're going to be late, let's go." and then stumble out the door, inevitably forgetting something important, which I need to go back into the house to retrieve. The next thing I know the digital clock in my car says 7:50 which is clock-speak for "You foolish woman, you're late again."

Let me just let you in on the irony of all of this--I started this blog several hours ago and just as I finished the last paragraph, I looked at the clock-it was time to get ready for Maddee and Max's piano recital. Actually, believe it or not, ten minutes beyond time to get ready. Their teacher (smart lady) wanted every child there at 2:40 as the performance began at 3:00. We had every intention of getting there by 2:40, then around 2:20 when we were still home rather than on the road, I thought it would be okay to arrive at 2:45. We pulled in at 2:57 before the start, sure, but 17 minutes after she wanted us there. The worst part, or perhaps the best, was that several families followed us. The recital didn't start until close to 3:15 thanks to the fact that while I am late, so are half the other families I know.

I won't lie, it makes me happy when other people are later than me. Quite honestly, it makes me feel, well, fantastic. While I am in my mind notoriously late, I am never the Jeanie of the group. I'm sorry to admit, but it makes me feel kind of smug. It creates some sort of pseudo-amnesia, allowing me to believe that I really wasn't so late after all. Before you know it I have recreated the events of my day completely with me arriving to school, recitals, plays, dinner, and other places quite promptly. This alone could be the reason I awake each day thinking today I know I am going to be on time.