We’re Late, and I’m the Reason

If I ever wrote a memoir, it would be titled: We’re Late, and I’m the Reason. Descriptive, to the point, and painfully accurate.

Time is my nemesis.

It sounds dramatic, I know, but it’s true.

I don’t mean that in the way most people see life as a race against time as it marches us ever closer to death. No, I’m talking about the fact that my brain’s grasp of time seems to have no basis in reality. A blind spot that is constantly getting me into trouble.

I’ve always had issues with time management, but it isn’t a big deal when you’re a kid. No one expects a five-year-old to really understand when you tell them they have “twenty minutes until bedtime” or “I’ll play that game with you in an hour”. To them, it’s all the same. It’s either happening now or it’s happening later. And, if it’s happening later, then it might as well be never.

My brain works much the same way. Which is a problem. Because I’m an adult.

Okay, sure, I understand on an intellectual level that five minutes is not the same as forty minutes. I did pass math, if only barely. But, just because I understand it as a basic concept, doesn’t mean it translates to functional use.

Just ask my husband. After eleven years together, it’s painfully obvious that he is the only reason we are ever on time for anything. Or, you know, close enough to on time.

Over the years, as our relationship has evolved, so has his reaction to my process of getting ready. In the early days, when Alex would pick me up for a date, he would often find himself waiting around for fifteen minutes or more while I finished up ‘just one more thing’. We were still in that blissful new relationship phase, and he would simply give a good-natured sigh and shake his head.

Eventually, as it always does, the natural high of new love fades and the rose-colored glasses with which you view your partner fall away. All of the little quirks you found endearing at one point might suddenly get on your very last nerve. Especially if that once adorable quirk makes you endlessly late for things. Which is fair.

I’d like to say that I have since found some magic cure to this particular flaw—some hack or system that I’ve implemented to cure my poor time management issues, but this isn’t that kind of article. It’s not that I haven’t tried. Oh lordy have I tried. If there is a blog, news story, self-help book, social media post, or meme out there with a ‘Fail Proof Ways to Always Be on Time’, rest assured that I have seen it, tried it, and disproven it. Fail proof my ass.

And it doesn’t seem to matter how important what I’m getting ready for is. You would think that having anxiety would ensure that I’m on time for the really important things. There should be at least some benefit. I mean, if my anxiety is going to hang around all the time anyway, it should make itself useful. Unfortunately for me, it doesn’t seem to work that way.

Just last week, I was due in traffic court at eight in the morning to explain why my car registration was over a year out of date—which is a whole other embarrassing story for another time. The court building is downtown, which, according to Google Maps, is roughly 23 minutes from my house. So, logically, if I left the house at 7:30, that would give me plenty of time!

My husband then reminded me that there might be traffic and I wasn’t sure what parking was going to be like, or how long it would take me to figure out where I needed to be once I got there. All valid points. Tack on an extra ten minutes. If I left the house at 7:20, that would be plenty of time!

So, the morning of my very first court appearance rolled around, car still snug and safe in the garage at 7:30. And what was I doing, you might ask. I was sweating all my makeup off as I darted from room to room clutching a file folder, swearing up and down that I remembered putting all of my paperwork in it. Yet, somehow, one of the documents I needed was inexplicably missing—a document that, a week later I might add, I still haven’t found.

Should I have gone through the documents the night before and made sure everything was in order? Probably. Could I have given myself more time in the morning to double check things? Sure. Instead, I woke up at 6:45, took my time eating breakfast while I scrolled social media on my phone, then spent a good half an hour weighing my outfit options and doing my hair and makeup—after all, if I looked presentable enough, then maybe the judge would be lenient.

It wasn’t until I was slipping my shoes on, already running late, that I thought to check the folder to make sure it had everything I needed. Big mistake. I can admit that now. But in my mind, this was classified as a footnote task that would take all of twenty seconds and I would be out the door. It never occurred to me that it would take more than that.

I was ready to tear my entire office apart when Alex helpfully reminded me that I had most of the documents I needed, and that the judge probably didn’t look favorably on those who showed up late to court. Realizing he was probably right, I shoved all the papers I did have back into the folder and rushed out the door. Somehow, by the grace of all that is good in this universe, there was minimal traffic, plenty of parking, and I managed to make it into the courtroom with two minutes to spare.

For those of you wondering, the judge took pity on me and was kind enough to reduce my fine to just the court fees.

Some of you might be thinking that at least I’ll have learned something from the experience. See, Jessica, It’s not so bad. Now you’ll remember to always go through all of your documents the night before. You would think so, but you would also be wrong. That wasn’t the first time I waited until the last minute to track down important paperwork, and I would bet good money I don’t have that it won’t be the last.

My brain just doesn’t work that way. It’s taken me many many years to admit it out-loud. Even though I know now that both the missing paperwork and my inability to be on time are symptoms of my ADHD, I still beat myself up over it. I swear every time that it will be different, and every time I am full of shit.

Date nights still regularly consist of racing the clock to make reservations on time. A game I rarely win.

With two littles at home, hectic schedules, and a tight budget, date night is a pretty rare occurrence these days. When the stars align and we’re somehow able to carve out some free time and wrangle up a babysitter for the same night, it’s an exciting event—shout-out to my sister, Kayleigh, for offering up her child care services pro bono!

You would think that with the incentive of a nice, relaxing night out, without kids, that I would be dressed, ready, and in the car long before it’s even time to leave. Instead, I can usually be found in my bathrobe, hair only half curled, eyeing the six outfits I have spread out on my closet floor while I try not to poke myself in the eye with the mascara wand when my husband pokes his head in to the danger zone to ask if we planned on making it to dinner on time. My response is always that I just need five more minutes.

At this point, Alex will roll his eyes, because we’ve long since realized that my five minutes is very different from his five minutes. See, when he thinks five minutes, he is literally thinking of five, sixty-second increments of time as measured by an actual clock. I’m told that this is what most people consider five minutes to be.

To me, on the other hand, five minutes is some vague, nebulous sort of time period that could mean anything from ‘in the next minute or so’ to ‘more than a minute, but definitely less than an hour’.

All time is like that in my head.

If we have dinner reservations for six, at four-thirty I’m still in my pajamas watching something on TV because I have plenty of time. We don’t have to leave for another hour, and all I have to do is: shower (complete with hair washing, shaving, body scrub, and a deep conditioning treatment), brush my teeth, complete my full moisturizing routine, blow dry and style my hair, do my makeup, pick an outfit, get dressed, decide I hate what I picked out, get un-dressed, pick a different outfit, get dressed again, decide that is as good as it’s going to get because if I change again, Alex might divorce me, re-check the kids’ diapers, say goodbye, and touch up the makeup I already messed up.

I should be able to do all of that in an hour, no problem!

Except I can’t. At least, not without learning to bed time and space. History has been very clear on this point, yet I always seem to find myself believing the same lies.

This is how I end up racing around the house trying to locate my other shoe, toothbrush hanging out of my mouth, one earring on, promising my husband through a mouth of toothpaste that I’ll be ready in just a minute when we were supposed to have left ten minutes ago.

There’s so much shame I’ve carried throughout my life related to my issues with time management. It’s hard to explain to anyone—doctor, teachers, or even friends—that you have no actual excuse for being late. There is no earthly reason you weren’t there on time…you just couldn’t manage it despite your best efforts. And how sad is that to understand about yourself? You put forth your best effort and still couldn’t manage to be on time.

Over the years, I’ve gotten a little better at being on time for the important things—doctor’s appointments, special events, that kind of thing. Much of this ‘improvement’ can be attributed to the crippling anxiety I’ve developed surrounding being late. With my anxiety firmly in the driver’s seat, it isn’t just the chunk of time before I need to arrive that’s filled with panic and queasiness (and an inability to focus on anything else). It’s been known to go on for days, even weeks, in advance with my mind spinning out of control to plan for various, and increasingly more ridiculous, “what-if” scenarios that could impact my ability to arrive on time.

‘What if the kids fight me on getting ready to leave?’ Fair. Actually, this one is probable.

‘What if I get lost on the way there and can’t figure out where to park?’ Also, fair.

‘What if the dog has explosive diarrhea all over the house right when I’m getting ready to leave?’ Less likely, but a distinct possibility.

‘What if my entire closet goes up in flames when I’m supposed to be getting dressed?’ Okay, so maybe this one isn’t very likely, but you never know!

No matter the likelihood of the scenario I’ve concocted in my head, my brain, genius that it is, is convinced it is now something we need to account for in this plan. It’s also how I end up arriving early to these things. And when I say early, I mean obnoxiously early—the kind where you sit in your car screwing around on your phone to waste time, praying that no one sees you (because what kind of monster shows up that early for something?), and silently berating yourself for all the time you’re now wasting that you clearly otherwise absolutely would have been folding the load of towels that has been sitting in the dryer for three days and now will obviously have to be there yet another day.

Again, cue the anxiety.

It should be a relief that I have proven it is possible for me to be on time. And it is on some level. But, why then, can’t I seem to be on time for everything? I’m still consistently late for everything from date night to school drop off. Why can’t I seem to replicate that anxiety induced panic across the board?

It wasn’t until I was diagnosed with ADHD, and really dug into the research of what that means, that part of my problem clicked into place: Time Blindness. It was a term I hadn’t heard before, but immediately felt right down in my soul. There was a documented, legitimate reason that I am so god awful with time.

Time Blindness is apparently pretty common for people with ADHD. It can mess with your perception of how much time has passed—cut to me sitting on my bed in a towel playing Candy Crush for “five minutes” that was actually forty-five minutes, and now I’m late. It can also affect your ability to accurate estimate how long tasks will take you complete…like getting ready for date night…no matter how much evidence you have that would tell a non-ADHDer exactly how long this activity has taken them every day for their entire adult lives.

One of my personal specialties in the Time Blindness bucket that I never had a name for until I saw the movie Set it Up with Zoey Deutch is called the ‘Over Dick-Around’. This is when you, miraculously, find yourself with time to spare before you have to be somewhere and need to waste a little time, only to get distracted, mis-calculate, and suddenly you’re late again. It’s a move I’ve perfected over the years. Oh, I have an hour to kill before my appointment that’s only five minutes away? Why don’t I just pop into Target and pick up those one or two things I need super-fast?

Famous last words. It will never be one or two things, and it will never be “super-fast”. Rookie mistake. Yet, it’s one I continue to make over and over again. In these situations, it’s as if my ADHD brain feels like I might be just a liiiitle too close to “having my life together” and needs to put a stop to that right-quick. Thanks a lot.

Knowing there is a term for my ongoing battle with time is a relief. And selfishly, as awful as it sounds, I’m glad I’m not the only one and that there are many other ADHDers out there somewhere cursing up a storm after catching sight of the time and realizing they’ve somehow lost an hour rearranging the junk drawer “really quick” and were supposed to leave for school pick up ten minutes ago.

I mean, at least we’re in this together?

Learning to be on time is a work in progress. Just like all of the other symptoms of ADHD that I struggle with on a daily basis. There is no quick fix for these kinds of things. Sure, there’s a lot of tips and tricks out there that people swear by—‘Just set your clocks five minutes ahead!’, ‘Write the appointment down in a visible place!’, ‘Make sure to set an alarm for when you have to leave!’. I’ve tried them all at one point or another only to feel like even more of a failure when I still manage to be late.

And that’s the thing about ADHD—or neurodivergence in general. Most suggestions for these kinds of problems that are floating around out there are geared toward neurotypicals. They rarely work for those of us with neurodivergent brains. My own brain, for example, seems to take these “Life Hacks” as a personal challenge. ‘Haha…you won’t trick me with your silly little alarms!’. 1 Point – Candy Crush. 0 Points – Making our dinner reservations. Instead, it becomes a life-long process of finding new and interesting ways of tricking your brain into doing the things you need to do.

If that sounds frustrating to you, I can assure you that you are not alone. It is frustrating. And just because you find a trick that works for you one time, that’s no guarantee it will work the next time, especially with an ADHD brain that thrives off of excitement and novelty. ‘You got me this time, but now we are wise to your tricks. Best of luck to you [insert cartoon villain laugh here]!’

All of that being said, if anyone has some tips for being ready on time, I’m sure my husband would appreciate you sharing them. Maybe this time will be different.