80 minutes

 English is a peculiar language sometimes. 

Why is tardiness pronounced tardiness whilst the word sardines is pronounced sardines instead of sardines? 

(see what I did there?)

Storytime:
Today I woke up late. I overslept at the alarm and instead of waking up at 7 as I normally do, I woke up at twenty past 8, which means I was an hour and 20 minutes late to do anything. 

I was late to walk the dog, and late to run my morning errands. I went late at the office and left late, too. I had late breakfast and late lunch, and when I returned home I had to cook late and ate a late dinner. 

I guess this sounds pretty stressful since tardiness is usually frowned upon. But did I mind? No, of course not. 

I don't sweat for such things anymore. I don't rush. You'll see me when you see me and I'll be there when I'm there! 

Of course, I'm not talking about having an appointment or someone relying on me. I'm doing my best to respect everyone's time and usually, I go to a meeting point earlier than planned, so I have some extra reading time for myself. 

But when no one is affected by my tardiness, I'm not going to stress over time. It's not a big deal, I had a slow start and a long day. It's fine! We're still alive. It doesn't matter! I forgive myself for being late, in fact, I respect my body for needing to sleep longer. It's a cold winter's day and I needed some rest. Kudos to me! 

It took me years to disregard the rush and stress I inherited from my family. In fact, now I don't allow anyone to tell me 'hayde'!
There is no such thing as being late.
I'm on my own time.
And I will not stress about it. 

I take time. I take my time to digest a situation. I take time to do a task. I take time to spend it on important things. No rush! 

And I need time. I need time for myself. 

And I give time. To people, to situations, to projects.

Cause time is a concept, created by humans to help us communicate better and somewhere someone lost the meaning of it, everything became a chore. Time is now a prison in which we all live chained. 

And it's sad. We rush to do things to get it over with, we push the weeks to the weekends and the months to summertime. 
We urge things to happen - come on, hurry up! Fall in love! Come on! What are you waiting for? Do it now!  

And then we wonder why we live in a generation of sadness and endless comparison. We compare our time in this world with others. But our time is our own. 

A friend of mine once said: ''The elder is not the one who lives longer, but the one who dies first, as for their time, that person has come to its end''. It took me a while to understand it. But once I did I started living upon that theory.  

So today I was 80 minutes late. But for what truly matters, I was on time, since I chose to be present.