Chronic Tardiness: I Have Had About Enough

Again, she's late ... this time by 55 minutes. Might as well make it a good, round hour, I am so hopping mad. We waited and waited, twenty minutes after she was supposed to be here we received a call that she was fifteen to twenty minutes away and "leaving right now". As she swept into the house, kids in tow, there were no apologies or sheepishness, only excuses and breeziness.

It was time for the beginning of Little B's nap time routine, but embarrassingly my cravings for gab and friendship won out and I let her stay. I didn't say anything about her tardiness; I never do. I bottle up the anger I have and use it on some poor, unsuspecting person later who I feel can take it. It's not nice and it's unfair, but at the time it's all happening I feel so frustrated I don't know what to do. So bottling it up becomes the option of least resistance.

She and her brood stayed for an hour, leaving my living room a complete mess, my son beyond tired, and my emotions out of whack. Her being late had made me feel unimportant yet again, and I was mad about it. Shouldn't I be important enough to my friend, one of my best at that, that she should show up on time or have the courtesy to call BEFORE she is late to tell me she is going to be so?

She seems to have been late because she was buying my birthday present, but the better gift would have been to be here on time. Not that this is the first time she's been late; it's just the most recent. Birthday parties, dinners, outings ... nothing is beyond the reach of her chronic tardiness.

All this isn't to say that I am never late; I am, on occasion, late for one thing or another. It is a fact of life, though I like to avoid it as best I can. But unlike those I know who are chronically tardy, I try to call before I am late and am embarrassed and extraordinarily apologetic about being late.

Since she left, I have been on a quest to discover answers why she is always late. I read this and this, but the inner, slightly more forgiving, me wants to attribute it to being scatterbrained, having kids to deal with, or having too much "life" and not enough time for it. That said, I know others who are chronically late who I could not attribute this to and cannot for the life of me understand why being on time is such an issue. The first article offers up solutions to deal with the chronically late, generally saying that you have to remind yourself that it's something within them (depression, lack of self-worth, etc.) that is creating the problem. But then that just makes me want to shake the tardies of my life and tell them to hop right into therapy.

At the end of it all, I will probably just go about this relationship as I always have; I will expect her to be late and bottle up the emotions I have about it. Part of me isn't sure our friendship could take a confrontation of the magnitude I know it would take to rectify the situation. The more late she gets, the more her tardiness and my feelings about it will damage our relationship and turn it into something tenuous, strained. It's a bleak future, it seems, but she isn't ignorant of the fact she is chronically late and has never done anything to try to be otherwise.

Now, to those of you reading this who are among the chronically tardy, I am earnestly sorry if I have offended you; that was not my intention. Release and brainstorming were my main focus when writing this post. That said, know that your tardiness does affect those who are waiting for you. To them, you are sending a message that they and their time are not worth being on time for, are not worth spending all the time you said you'd have on.