Late

Okay, I may ruffle a few feathers with this post, but it is my blog, and I have to put this out there.


I value punctuality a lot. A LOT! I absolutely hate being late. It is something that I inherited from my mother. She trained me to not only be on time, but to be early. If I am only 5 minutes early, I feel late.

I can only remember a few times that I have been late. There is one that sticks out very clearly, mainly because it happened recently.

I had been asked to take a salad to a funeral luncheon. I made it the night before and it was all ready to go. It needed to be there at 4:00. My husband also had somewhere to be at 4:00. I sent him off and sat down to read.

At 4:20, I just happened to glance at my calendar and saw the reminder. I freaked out! I jumped up and grabbed The Chocoholic and we took off. I brought him so he could hold the salad so I could race. It normally takes me 5 minutes to get to the church. I made it in 3. I was speeding and The Chocoholic commented that he had never seen me drive so fast.

And then he asked me if this was the first time I had ever been late. I told him no, there had been a few other times. He said, “Well this is the first time I remember.” And he is 11. That made me so proud, to know that he knows that I am not late.

In our community, being late is commonplace. People joke about being on “Mormon time,” which is 10-15 minutes late for everything. It is accepted as normal. Meetings rarely start on time because there are very few people there. We have to wait until more people arrive before we start.

This really bothers me. What they are saying is that the people who are late are more important than the people who are on time, me included. It makes me feel very unimportant, to the point that I have stopped going to a few meetings because I don’t want to feel that way.

And I wish people didn’t feel the need to make fun of me because I am punctual. No one in our ward has, and no one to me specifically, but in general. Just general remarks about “people who are on time have nothing better to do with their lives.”

Thanks.

I also have worked hard to teach my children to be reverent. We start at an early age and work with them at home to teach them how to sit quietly. We sit near the front of the chapel so they can pay attention better. It’s not easy, but we do it. Then I heard about a comment that Sister Julie Beck (General Relief Society President) said at a regional conference. She said, “Reverent children are weird.”

Thanks.

If I were to give a talk to a bunch of women and say, “Irreverent children are weird," there were be a huge uproar. But it’s okay to make fun of me. I try really hard not to let it get to me, but I guess tonight, I am feeling it.

I don’t make fun of you. Please don’t make fun of me.

Again, this is not directed to anyone in specific. Just to the general public. And I hope I didn't offend anyone.  I just had to get it off my chest.