We have a new ninja in our running group. Very excited to have her! yey! However, yesterday was a tough day to get everyone out there and hitting the pavement....it could have been the promise of sprinting hills that deterred everyone....but since they are ninjas they probably just had other more pressing matters to attend to. But our newest runner, she had to deal with a late start. Now I won't admit that it was me that was late...but I also won't deny it.
Still thinking about traffic school and the other lesson I learned in that FOUR hour class... the value of time. I had two very good friends, would even call them my best friends, my freshman year of college. One had grown up without her mom, she had passed away when she was a teeny tiny baby and I think that in order to fill the kind of void I can't even begin to imagine of not having your mom around, she grew up to be very motherly, organized and sooo very responsible. My other friend, grew up with divorce as the reason why her dad was not around. He would promise to come visit. Sometimes he would show up, most times he would not, and quite often he was late. Very late. So my one friend was very much afraid of missing out on something that she often planned and re-planned things so that they would turn out...she also didn't have any trace of flakyness. My other friend was brutal, she didn't plan as much but when it came to being somewhere on time she was, didn't really matter what she left behind that was unfinished and didn't accept the curve balls that life throws at you as an excuse for running late.
My first friend saw her interaction with the world as controlled, the more control she had the better. My second friend saw the world's interaction with her, as a personal insult when things did not go as planned. No wonder these were amazingly good as friends!
Enter Yasmin.
I had both my parents. My Dad super strict about being on time. My Mom, saying "honey, you can't control everything all the time" and "sometimes there's a reason why things worked out this way". But both of them followed through. I learned that you could plan, you could prepare and you could still end up late. And when you were, you could forgive yourself and when you were waiting you could be patient because you never knew what was around the corner. My friends, awesome as they were, were not as patient as I needed. But that's why you have people in your life different than you. To help you grow and teach you lessons.
My second friend, who had issues with her Dad, constantly would say "the most precious gift is time" and she saw a very direct correlation between someone making you wait with how much they valued you. Probably because she was tired of waiting for a Dad who might or might not show up and assumed it was an indicator of how much he loved her. There was no other aspect of a person that she would consider as important as being on time. It's amazing we stayed friends. She would get mad because I would be late (just a few minutes but still very rude) and I would get mad because I felt I was a good friend in every other possible way....in fact I thought I was the best person to have as a friend, I'm like one of those ride or die kinda people...yea I'm pretty gangster! Well years of frustration built up and on my birthday on the way to a simple little birthday dinner we ended our friendship. I was waiting for my ride (lol no car remember?!) and she was going to meet us at the restaurant. My ride got lost on the way to my house, then we had another person call and ask to be picked up. All this added about ten minutes to drive....
Then as we were headed down Roosevelt, on 75th...you know where the Safeway is...we almost got hit by a car...t-boned and all....I was in the passenger seat. I turned to look out the window and saw this car speeding towards us, I yelled at my friend "STOOOOOP" or something...all i know is that there was a sound that came out of my mouth...not sure if it was comprehensible...i saw my life flash before my eyes...closed them tight and waited for the impact. It never came. The car had good breaks. The driver managed to stop about an inch from our car...an inch from my door! I did not die on my birthday...but boy was i shaken up...there was crying and laughing and yelling at the other driver and lots of sorrys. But we were all fine.
Everyone except for my friend who was calling us, she was at the restaurant and didnt want to go in by herself. She didn't like doing things like that on her own. So finally I realized I had missed her call, called her back as we were looking for parking. We found a spot as she answered. She was so fuming mad that she swore she would never hang out with us again... said we were inconsiderate of her time and she could not believe that she was my friend. All this before I had the chance to tell her that we were all shaken up a bit, but were fine, were there and could actually see her standing in front of our car. I think she had waited 15 minutes total. Which is a long time to be waiting. But I told her she could leave if she wanted. She left and we never ever spoke after that.
Again, traffic school teacher, comes to mind with her words of wisdom.... "consider the things that you value and think about what skills you need to improve in terms of that value system."
For me (again-not saying I was the late one) I would have to consider how my being late affects what I value, which are my friendships, my running groups motivation, and my list of goals to accomplish during the day. But...hopefully I can work on this in a supportive environment and utilizing communication effectively. I'm glad I have friends who tell me not to be late and also forgive me when I am, so I hope our new running ninja wasn't discouraged by having to wait a little longer to sprints up a hill!
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