Help, I Am Always Late!

What happens when you try to turn yourself into an early person? One writer, who is never on time, tried it out...

- Alice Snape

''OMG I am sorry, on my 'O way now, I promise.' If you have ever received this message from me, I am sorry. I was lying. Yep, I am that person, messaging you while you are already where we had planned to meet. As for me? I am most likely WhatsApping, knickers round my ankles as I sit on the loo putting my lippie on. I have every intention of leaving. Although, I just need to find my keys. And pack my bag. And get changed, as-FFS-I suddenly hate what I am wearing...

I have missed the beginning of a friend's wedding, trailing in at the back as she walked down the aisle. Sweat pooling in my armpits, mouthing 'Sorry' at anyone daring to look at me and not the bride. Every time I am at the airport they will call my name while I am idly sniffing random perfumes at Duty Free. I have watched infinite numbers of trains pull away from me as I scream into the empty void of a platform: 'Why am I like this?'.

I do not mean to be late. I always allow myself lots of time. It is just that somehow, I manage to fill it and then some. I fill my hours like I fill my flat, with all the stuff. I love the stuff. And more, it is not that I don't believe in time I know that it rules our worlds-but I can't fully grasp it. Why is it that hours sometimes slip by in seconds, and why does a week sometimes feel like a year? But I can no longer fight it. My lateness may have been charming at university (perhaps I was kidding myself), but now it is costing me money (so much re-booked transport!) and relationships (my punctual friends have stopped inviting me places and my husband is threatening divorce—okay, that may be a slight dramatisation), so I decided to give myself a challenge: could I change? And become...gasp...an early person? I set myself (with an expert’s help) some tasks to find out.