I'm late, I'm late! For a very important date!

A.k.a. The story of my life

I've done this thing, ever since I was in elementary school, where I never show up on time. And I mean NEVER. Anyone who knows me personally is probably like no shit. My boyfriend did this thing for a while where he would tell me an event started 15-20 minutes earlier than it actually was scheduled just so I would show up kind of on time. I'm late for work, late for meals, late for dates (sorry, boo!), late for movies, late to parties, I go to sleep late, and of course I always, always, always wake up late.

Me and my Ma at my 1st birthday party. We probably showed up late.

I think this all started back in elementary school. I lived out of district so my mom had to drive me there every morning. When I say we lived out of district, I mean we lived practically on the other side of town. We were late to school every damn day. The lady in the office would ask me why I was late so she could write me a tardy slip. Most of time I made things up, because most of the time I was just late for no reason. But then one day I ran out of excuses. I didn't even know 7-year-olds were capable of running out of tall tales! I was super annoyed with this lady and I was already late. She was making me even later by filling out this tardy slip. So I looked at her, practically straight into her soul and (with a bunch of attitude, no doubt) I said, "I'm just late, okay?" She looked at me like I said the worst thing a human could possibly say. I got over it, and so did she. I used to get mad about being late all the time. I was never able to get those dumb perfect attendance certificates because of all my tardy slips even though I never actually missed a day- I was just late... everyday. I used to just blame it on my mom. Wasn't it her fault since she was the one in charge of the driving? She was the adult, after all. When I was late to school that meant she was also late to work. She never got tardy slips though, just me. I figured that as I got older, I would figure out how to be on time. Maybe I would even arrive early to some places!

I was a day late to meet my friend Israel in D.C. because I was late to the airport and missed the flight.

DREAM ON SANTANA BECAUSE THAT'S NOT WHAT HAPPENED AT ALL. Once I started driving, I was so mad when I realized arriving somewhere at 8:30 meant you had to leave at 8:00, which meant you had to wake up at 7:00. SEVEN! WTF?! I was used to my parents doing all this calculating and just telling me when to get in the car. They would come into my room several times every morning trying to wake me up and by the time I was awake and dressed, it was time to get into the car. Also we lived pretty far away from town so that usually tacked on an extra 10-15 minutes to my commute. The only thing I was really ever consistently on time for was marching band (eew, I know). That was because if I showed up late they made the whole section run or do push ups or something annoying like that. People didn't like it when you were late. I was shamed into not being late for the (6:15 IN THE MORNING, MIND YOU) zero hour rehearsals and that was pretty much the last time I recall being consistently on time. 

I was late to all my part time jobs in high school. In college, I was always late to class. I was also always late to my first "real" job. And I'm still late to the even realer job I have now. I've gotten my fair share of lectures on tardiness. I understand why it comes off as disrespectful and rude, but I honestly never try and purposefully blow things off like that. I really do try to show up on time. Even things that I really, really care about I'm late to. One of my old bosses, possibly my favorite so far, had this conversation with me quite a few times. I could tell that every time he sat me down to have that same conversation he was slowly growing more annoyed with my tardiness. I don't blame him. I was always scared I was going to get fired for being late. I really liked this job and it was (finally!) in my career field. Luckily I never got fired for being late, I got let go because of other things. 

St. Benedict: The patron saint of time management. A.k.a. my nemesis! 

Clearly this is something I'm still struggling with. How important is timeliness in your opinion? I've already stated my defense, but I know people who hold timeliness next to holiness. I think it's just part of who I am - Santana's always late. Others probably think I'm rude and lazy. What do you think of chronically late people?

P.S. I meant to post this last week. Apparently I'm late at blogging too.