You Can’t Hurry Love: 4 Good Reasons Why We’re Always Late

As a family, we are chronically late. We do not do mornings. We are not morning people. We will likely never be morning people and we are really OK with that. It’s just who we are. There are a few key reasons why we are always late outside of our strong and hateful feelings about mornings.

1. Missing shoes. I feel like shoes evaporate on school days. The likelihood of finding them is inversely proportionate to the urgency of finding them on any given day. If my son’s shoes had a travelogue, I would surely subscribe to it, if only to satisfy my curiosity as to where they have been while we ardently searched for them.

2. Snuggles. My son loves to snuggle. He crawls into my bed and tells me how amazing I am as a mom. It’s rather decadent and indulgent. Life has so many moments where I question myself, so it’s nice to have a little space in time where at least somebody thinks I know what I’m doing. It’s hard to turn them down—even when there are shoes to be found. I’m thankful for my morning pep talk—really, it’s a mutual admiration society, because I love getting to tell him how awesome he is while he still thinks I know things.

3. Mommy brain. The only thing that is harder to find in the morning than shoes is my keys. I found them in the fridge one day. There’s no looking for the keys to my heart, I’m just over here searching for the keys to my car. These days it feels like I can’t keep a thought in my head and it’s so frustrating.

4. Optimism. I insist that we aren’t disinterested about our commitments, we are just overly optimistic about how long it takes to get places. We always assume the best. We do that about people and we also do that about traffic and adverse weather conditions. We underestimate how long it will take to find the keys and shoes. We estimate morning snuggles will take 50% less time to complete but are not really apologetic when they don’t. Our anthem is “Don’t Stop Believing” and we always believe that no matter what happens, everything will work out in the end. And it will—just a bit later than we originally intended.

We may not be morning people, but we try our best and put one foot in front of the other every day (even if we can’t find the shoes for them). Maybe we can’t unlock my car, but my little boy’s smile unlocks my heart and fills me with optimism. At least we are always on time for snuggles!