Being Late and Getting Stood Up

Today must have been “Get stood up Day,” because I experienced about weeks worth of getting stood up in just the past 8 hours.

It started with me waking up at 7:30 to hang out with a friend. That friend wanted another couple hours of sleep, so that’s #1. I get to my front door and realized that I had forgotten my keys. Locked out. I count this as getting stood up by the door, so that’s #2. I eventually get back in the house, watch a movie, and receive a text saying, “How far away are you?” My heart drops. I had a meeting with some people in the youth program and forgot to enter it into my phone. I stood them up…not on purpose but still, that’s #3. THEN I schedule in a workout with my buddy at a park. After not seeing him when I arrive, I lay down on the bench and wait for 15 or so minutes (which when you’re waiting, always seems double the time you waited). I thought he wasn’t going to show and furthermore fuel this already miserably themed day.

I have to say, it is not the greatest feeling to keep recurring throughout the day. Being late, unless given a pretty decent reason, is pretty avoidable. For example: Know what time you need to be there, tack on another 10-15 minutes, 30 if you wanna be really safe, or 60 if there’s traffic…and be early! For some reason, people have this fear that being early is bad, or a waste of time. You need to show up RIGHT on time. Well people, showing up without a second to spare rarely happens, and it’s not a very impressive thing to be good at. Also, if you’re 15 minutes away, you’re on the phone with the person you’re meeting, and you tell them you’re 5 minutes away to ease the blow…it doesn’t ease the blow. You’re still 10 minutes late. You failed twice now. Lying, and being late. Ulgh. Finally, if you need an hour to be somewhere, don’t say “see you in 30″….say “see you in an hour.” There, that wasn’t so hard!

I wont say too much about getting stood up because if you have been there, you know how much it sucks. You feel like you put effort into something that the other person didn’t care that much about, making you feel humiliated. This obviously transcends beyond getting stood up on a date, but that’s often the most painful. These are also quite avoidable unless you did it on purpose….so take the right measures to avoid standing people up. My mistake was not putting the meeting immediately into my phone, which I do with other meetings, hang outs, events, errands, or to-do’s. If I don’t do it right when I hear about it, I will most likely space on it. I’m MUCH better than I used to be, but obviously I still haven’t nailed it.

If you couldn’t tell, this was a situational rant. Thank You.

Eric

2 minute Misery

2 minute Misery 11.19.2013

Written after being stopped in traffic. There was a school girl no more 
than 15 years old, sitting on a bench about 2 meters from my car, just 
writing in her notebook.

Bench side girl, legs crossed, heart and soul likewise guarded.

Line after line in the notebook, page after page unseen.

You gaze out in front, seeing everything, taking it all in through a filter.

A pause sets in, years on your face, but still just a girl.

Flat, white paper becomes a crumpled ball.

Mashed in your hand, I see pain…..such unecessary pain.

You lay down your notebook, but keep up your defenses.

Bench side girl, legs crossed, heart and soul likewise guarded.

For some reason, this girl really brought out the social worker
in me. I wanted to talk to her, and ask her if she was alright.
I wanted to ask her why she hated what she was writing about to 
the point where she needed to crumble up the paper and discard it.
She looked alone, isolated from something, and long in years even
though she was a teenager. For some reason she stayed with me long 
after traffic began to move again. It was a moment for me and she 
was 2 minutes of misery.