the parking lot at 1:25

hey, it's tiff.

the appointment was at 2. you got there at 1:25 and sat in the parking lot, doing nothing, because leaving any later risked the other version of this story: walking in ten minutes late, over-apologizing, hating yourself through the whole appointment. and it didn't cost you thirty-five minutes. it cost you the day. you couldn't start anything all morning because 2pm was sitting in the middle of it, blocking everything.

here's what i want to say about that.

you don't experience time the way clocks measure it. for brains like ours there are two time zones: now, and not-now. a thing that's not-now is unreachable, and then all at once it is now, all of it. so you're either bracing hours early or blindsided into being late, and the world reads the first as anxiety and the second as disrespect. neither is true. they're the same brain, missing the same gauge, choosing between the only two errors on the menu.

and look closer at what you've built. the parking lot sitting isn't wasted time. it's the price you pay on purpose so you don't have to pay the shame instead. the early panic and the late scramble are the same thing underneath: you, caring hard about not letting people down, working with a gauge that doesn't report the minutes.

so this week, whichever way you miss, count it differently. you showed up. early, rattled, late, breathless, whatever shape it took. showing up over and over with a gauge that doesn't work is not a punctuality problem. it's a kind of devotion, and i'm tired of watching people apologize for their own devotion.

🖤 tiff