I don’t like to waste time. When I am ready to go somewhere, I want to go. I don’t like waiting around for this or that, for someone slow or for anyone who is just plain dilly-dallying. And I don’t like to be late. To me being late is wasted time, disrespectful, unnecessary and most of the time inexcusable. You may think in reading this that I am pretty structured, organized and a mean person. But really, I’m not. I was just raised this way. In the Blair family being on time is being at least 10 minutes early. It’s better to be early or on time, and being late is more than a nuisance. My parents instilled in all of us that being early is really being on time.
Then I met and married Jon. Jon comes from a family that moved out west from Minnesota in the 40’s. They were country folks, farmers and hard workers. And I venture to say they moved out here slowly. I won’t say I have any facts to prove that, but just by lifestyles that I have observed over the last 43 years I am confident it wasn’t done quickly. They just don’t move fast. And it doesn’t seem to bother them that they may be holding up the party by their “slowness”. It’s just who they are. It’s just how they were raised. It’s not good or bad. It just is.
So put those two together and you have TENSION. Or at least you have two people dancing to two different drum beats, trying hard to make each other understand the other one. And chastising the other one for doing a waltz when you are moving to the disco beat. Not fun. And certainly not very productive. Unless you keep working at it, studying each other’s moves and learn to make your own dance out of it. And that’s what we’ve done.
Now, after over 42 + years of marriage Jon and I have danced out our differences in appointment/time management. We have spent time discussing our bents and working from each side to learn how we can meet more in the middle and either not be so stressed with feeling late, or feeling like we are wasting time getting somewhere early (or just plain on time!). It’s worked well, and we have come a long way. Jon realizes that it’s not prudent to try to fit one more thing in before we head out the door and I realize that being early to places is not always necessary and sometimes just not wise! We are now a better functioning twosome!
And that makes for a happier marriage.
