Don't be late for a very important date.

Right so today is already begun as an insanely big mess.
I woke up and I had literally 15 minutes to get ready and ended up leaving the house horribly late. I got the bus at about 15 past seven and got to the train station and got my ticket by half past.

That was all fine and dandy, until that is I stopped and asked for a little help from a lady standing on the platform, that is when the curveball hit me smack in the face, I didn't even see it or feel it coming. I asked which train to get on and she told me that I was in the right place and so being the idiot that I am, I got on the wrong train, I was meant to get on the one after the one I actually got on. Any way the one I did get on was heading towards Fenchurch without stopping. Well shit out of luck I went to Fenchurch and then had to wait around for the train to Grays. I got on one and then got chucked off it was the wrong train that was not meant to be going anywhere. Finally at about ten to nine the right train arrived and took off shuffling along towards Grays, I think I felt my heart jump into my throat when the train just stopped for just over five minutes right before the Barking stop. By then I was already late and feeling increasingly distressed.

I had already emailed my teacher and phoned one of the girls in my class just to let Liz know. Seriously, one of the best lessons of the day and I was going to miss it, that was the turd on the cake for me. I had emailed her while I was sitting and freezing my backside off at Fenchurch station, waiting for that metallic monster of salvation to come rattling in just to sweep me off to a day of being a busy bee.

I eventually passed Barking, and all the other stops that blurred past the window at my side. The train came to a stop in Grays, my belly greeted it with a disgruntled whine, my belly gave of a solitary twang of sharp, disheartening pain, as if some kind of mutated alien had taken up residence withing my belly and was trying to scrub the walls of my stomach with acid and claw its way out in search of food. I was damn hungry, hungry and angry.

I came to the realization that when you are busy all the time you rarely find the time to stop and eat enjoyably slow or even to enjoy having a shower, instead of finding it chore-like to just make the time to have a shower ( I wish there was technology available that meant we didn't have to shower, and would just become clean magically.) Skin eaters, I remember that theory from high school Home Economics lessons. With no time for much of anything, we find ourselves eating things we will later regret while on the go, not having the time to stop and sit down to enjoy the food. Not stopping to savor the sweet, the salty, the bitter or the fiery twang of a curry or a spicy bun. We mindlessly power walk or run, swallowing without thinking, just trying to make that meeting or train, hoping to god we will get there before the doors shut in your face with a nasty twang of 'I told you so, I told you that you would be late, you silly bean.' ringing in your ears, that gut wrenching feeling when you realize that if you had just held on to that morning urination session, you would have made it, or if you had just left the bowl in the sink you could have made that train or bus. Those moments when you realize that you should have listened to that feeling growing in the lower part of your abdomen, that feeling whispering ' You are going to be late, leave that bit of sticky-uppy hair alone, just go. You'll be late otherwise.' 

Then there is the commuters dread that grows in your bones, that dread that you are going to be late or miss the meeting with those important people that pay your wages, that dread that settles in and quashes and appetite that you might have had. Sometimes that dread even makes it feel like your morning coffee, that could have contributed to your lateness, is curdling in your stomach, forming balls of sickening frustration in your gut.

I have commuters despair, I feel upset, nervous and ridiculously frustrated when I don't get to the places I am supposed to be at the time that I am supposed to be.

I got to college 40 minutes late with an empty stomach and a very painful head. Tomorrow I will NOT BE LATE.

xxxxxxx
F