I think if i were to analyze my entire texting history for my my most frequently used words and phrases, the top three would easily be:
“I’m running late.”
“I’m running behind.”
And “I’m sorry.”
Because “I’m sorry” usually precedes “I’m late.” It might be the most frequently used phrase in my personal lexicon.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I chant under my breath, like a mantra or a prayer, as I wait for the light to turn, drumming my index fingers on my steering wheel.
And I am sorry. Truly. Even though I sometimes try to lighten the mood by joking. “I was born a few weeks early,” I say. “So, I’ve been making up for it in five- and ten-minute increments ever since.”
As a loved one pointed out gently, the reins on their frustration audibly drawn tight, after twenty-eight years of being late for everything, I’ve probably more than made up for my “headstart.”
(Two weeks is equivalent to 20,160 minutes. If I am, on average, ten minutes late, that’s 2,016 instances of being late. If I am late, on average, only twice per week, I would have burned through 20,160 extra minutes in approximately nineteen years.)
Emily Stroble is a writer of bits and pieces and is distractedly pursuing lots of novel ideas and nonfiction projects as inspiration strikes. As an editorial assistant at Zondervan, she helps put the pieces of children’s books and Bibles together. A lover of the ridiculous, inexplicable, and wondrous as well as stories of all kinds, Emily enjoys getting lost in museums, movies old and new, making art, the mountains of Colorado, and the unsalted oceans near Grand Rapids. Her movie reviews also appear in the Mixed Media section of The Banner and her strange little stories of the fantastic are on the Calvin alumni fiction blog Presticogitation. Her big dream is to dig her hands deep into the soil of making children’s books as an editor…and to finally finish her children’s novel.
