I’m Chronically Late and I’m Sorry Column: India Me vs. Me in

I’m Chronically Late and I’m Sorry

Dear Reader,

I’m a late person. I arrive late for school, events and even my own birthday party. You name it, and I show up at least an hour late. As someone who’s chronically late, I’m taking this opportunity to explain myself.

I often take my precious time getting ready until I hardly realize that I need to be there right at that moment when I haven’t even left the house! I convince myself I’ll show up to school on time as I rub sleep from my eyes fifteen minutes before class starts. I tell my friends, “I’ll be there in five!” as I accidentally smudge my eyeliner and groan as I have to start all over again. I make excuses by blaming my lateness on my dad who supposedly ‘didn’t get ready fast enough.’

This all may sound like a ton of complaining from a late person who feels the need to justify her lateness — and maybe it is. I hope this letter resonates with you if you’re always late like me. I have a variety of reasons for showing up late all the time, depending on the event. It’s actually three main reasons. 1) I’m never early to anything. Ever. 2) I suck at time management. 3) I make lateness a competition, always showing up last.

At this point, it’s instilled in my brain that if something starts at 5 p.m., I can still be acceptably on time showing up 30 minutes to an hour later. We call it Indian Standard Time. My family is consistently an hour late to any event, and even then, that is probably too early. My parents recently went to an Indian music concert with renowned artists and musicians. It turns out most of the audience was so late that they had to delay the concert by 30 minutes — they served chai and samosas and no one even batted an eye.

I always tend to overestimate the amount of time I have to get ready, which is becoming a bit of a problem. Take school, for example. I calculate the perfect amount of time I need to get up so I can show up at school with only one minute left before the bell rings. That way, I maximize my sleep time. It doesn’t always go as planned, though, since I slam the snooze button 15 times until I’m forced to wake up. People are often surprised when I’m 10 minutes early to class, asking me what I’m doing at school so early.

Thankfully, many of my closest friends are people who are chronically late as well, and at this point if we plan anything, everyone just adds an hour to the time. My friend group knows I often show up last, so I hardly bother trying to come on time.

Although I admire people with good time management skills, I think I’ll have to accept that I’m simply not like that

My bad, Anoushka Gokhale, Writer