I’m halfway convinced that one of the reasons I’d rather talk to adults is because I’d always get to practice early and have time to hear all their drama while I was tying my shoes. I’d get to school and have time to meet all the school secretaries, librarians, and monitors that corralled all the kids together. That’s besides the point, though.

When it was up to me getting somewhere via the mini van, I was going to be early. Not like 10 minutes early more like 25-30 minutes early. Painfully, painfully early. Of course I didn’t realize until about the 8th grade that I could have been sleeping in an extra who knows how long or catching the end of some Disney channel rerun instead of leaving before the quarter after mark. And up until that point, I knew nothing other than that early was my on time.

Because I was never late a day in my younger life, I absolutely cannot stand being early. I don’t enjoy being late; it is seriously exhausting waiting until the last possible second to run out the door. But being early is just worse.

I don’t know how my mom did it. In the summer I would go from dance to a softball game and still have that catcher’s gear on before lineups were announced. Now I have three hours in between class and still walk in either scrapping by, wheezing from stairs, or with casual headphones in pretending I wasn’t just doing that awful jog holding both backpack straps and trying not to let your whole body shake along.

You know when you sign up for like yoga or something and you get there just before they check you in and the teacher still has to set up and you don’t know her or the other three people that already know where all the equipment is? And you’re just chilling, retying your shoe into triple knots or Dutch braiding your hair into cornrows to pass the time? Ha yeah, could’ve just left 10 minutes later and walked in with enough time to get set up and start without any of that ungodly awkwardness.

So just like that super early turns into a little early and that goes from right on time to 5 minutes late really quick. Before you know it, your timeliness or lack thereof becomes a lifestyle.

It starts with snoozing my alarm, one, four, eleven times every morning. Cramming my whole morning routine into two minutes and convincing myself that extra sleep was worth the way my hair is going to look for the rest of the day. Then deciding to make breakfast so I have to catch the bus that only gives me a minute and a half to do a four-minute walk to class. Napping at 6 PM knowing you told someone dinner at 7 but that’s really going to mean 7:18. Then ending the day with a set bedtime of midnight but eight Facebook videos later it’s past 1 AM and you’re about to snooze even longer tomorrow.

So all day, it’s a catch up game. There’s no time to settle in, prepare, or be all there. Even if you have a few good go’s at being early, it is too easy to convince yourself that you can warp time, just drive fast, walk fast, or make it work. It is literally a part of personality that affects so much of our day, and yet being early is just still so unappealing.

So I’ll be late or on time or early, whatever works. How does that one saying go, “better late than never,” right?