Pregnancy is a lesson in patience.
A woman needs patience to cope with the anticipation of what is to come. It starts with waiting the three minutes for the pregnancy test, runs through the nine months of pregnancy and the first labor pain, to the long awaited delivery.
Nature has its own standard for time – Everything happens when the time is right.
No one can change that.
In my case, my mother learned the lesson of patience far too well. I was due March 23rd. Like most expectant mothers, by the time that date came, my mother was done with patience. She wanted me out. But I refused to come.
So, she waited a week, then another, and still another. Finally, I decided to make an appearance, on April 21st, one month after I was supposed to arrive.
Time and I were not off to a good start.
Throughout my childhood, I was constantly late. I’ve always been a bit of a magpie, distracted by shiny objects. And to a kid, the world is full of shiny objects. In the spring, if there was some leftover ice on a puddle, I’d have to crack it. In the summer, it was just too hot to move quickly. In the fall, leaves called my name, asking to be gathered up and jumped in. And as for winter, well, growing up in on the Canadian east coast there was never a shortage of snowy hills to slide down, usually two more times than time allowed for.
My younger siblings learned to be on time from my example of lateness.
I was always getting into trouble. My late entry into the world stayed with me in everything I did. My sister saw that trouble and decided to avoid it. I of course never noticed her punctuality because I always arrived after she did.
I never meant to be late. I always had a reason and to me they were very good reasons, even if the reason was simple procrastination.
Time just wasn’t important to me.
I had more important things to worry about.
By the time I reached university, being late meant nothing to me. Perpetual tardiness was my natural state. Even for exams. In my second year of university, I woke up feeling the sun on my face. Now normally this is a good thing and should be enjoyed, slowly. But this time, the sun on my face told me that I was late. Again. To be specific, I was late for my French exam which had started twenty minutes previously.
I panicked, of course, but I was resourceful. After all, I’d spent my whole life being late.
I knew what to do. I’d take a taxi to my exam. But I only had one dollar to my name. Still no problem. I called the taxi company and pleaded my case. I was the poor student who had studied so hard I missed my alarm (I doubt I had even set it), and even though I had no money, would someone take pity on me and drive me to my exam as soon as possible?
Someone did, a man who had a daughter away at university and who hoped that someone would do the same for her if she was in a similar fix.
I got to my exam, told the story of my lateness and taxi ride to my instructor (in French as the oral part of the exam), and he was so entranced by it that he allowed me to do the written part of the exam several hours late.
My perpetual lateness made great stories.
I was proud of my lateness. It was a part of me. I even chose a husband who wasn’t punctual. Instead of being late at birth he was early, by a month. Between the two of us we had no idea what time it was.
For our wedding we got four clocks as presents and we earned the nickname of “The Tardy Twins.”
We thought it was funny. It was a game.
How could we manipulate time to fit in one more activity?
How could we use Time to avoid getting things done?
How could we manipulate Time to not be responsible for our decisions?
By being late we didn’t respect others and we didn’t respect ourselves.
Of course, at some point it had to come crashing down. For me, it happened the way it happens for many people, especially women. I couldn’t say no. I kept on adding responsibilities, at work, at home, and in the community. I thought I could handle it. I thought time was infinitely stretchable. I could always squeeze in one more thing.
Then time snapped back and my life cracked.
I took sick leave from work and never returned. I decided to stay home with my children. I started to say no, and I started to get to know time better, to feel it rather than count it.
I also have three amazing children, one of which has high functioning autism (Asperger Syndrome, also known as “wrong planet syndrome”). Social skills aren’t innate for him. He has had to learn them all by rote. I couldn’t afford to teach him how to play tricks with time. He wouldn’t see it as a game. He would take it seriously, and that wasn’t funny.
I took responsibility for my actions, and went from never being on time for anything and always rushed to being a minute or two early for every activity and more productive than ever.
I did this by figuring out what I wanted and getting rid of the rest.
I learned to manage the events in my life, not the minutes in the hour.
And I started to look at the desired results and work backwards from them to the present moment.
In other words, I created a Just In Time Life for myself.
If I could do that, the woman who was late from within the womb, then anyone can….
This is the opening page of ’Just in Time Life‘ a book that would not have happened without Alex Fayle my very organized writing coach and friend.
To finish this book I am looking for stories about Time and the crazy relationships we have with our time. If you would like to contribute to this book and share some insights, wisdom and your own funny Time stories please leave a note here and I will forward the details to you.
