Late for My Own Life

3 December 2012

“It’s 07:30AM and I’m supposed to be at school in 15 - how on earth am I going to get to the other side of town in 15 bloody minutes when I’m only leaving the door now?!” 
That was school for me – being late - almost every day. Yep – late. Almost. Every. Single. Day. Besides going when I felt like it, I deliberately chose to be late. Silly me. Although I always felt a sense of urgency and remorse on my way there, I wasn’t the least bit bothered otherwise (so much for being a teacher’s pet). A lot of the times, I even did my homework on the way. Why couldn’t I get an A for multitasking?

Apart from being late for school, I was late for my own life in general. Sometime before I was 18, an age when a lot of my peers were already starting villages of their own, I missed that bus of underage drinking, awesome wild parties and steaming hot make-out sessions with some of my crushes (boy, did I have a lot of crushes back then). Bummer. If by some miracle I happened to be there, I was probably that shy, adorable, friendly kid who just had fun being the party-pooper. For the life of me, I even swapped chill-sessions, socials, the coolest concerts and danceshows to go to workshops, seminars or just stay home and read. Studying books on commerce, self-development and motivation consumed a large portion of my time since I was 12. At 16, I even passed off the opportunity to date my biggest crush because “I wasn’t ready”. Can someone say total cube…?

The first time I tasted a man’s lips I was 17. We were two weeks in and man, did I surprise the living daylights out of myself that day. I then drank alcohol for the first time a while before I turned 18, giving the cranberry juice and green tea a break each time we went to the club – swapping them for a cider or two. I never became much of a drinker though. I’ve actually put that to a complete hault, remembering my mother’s age-old philosophy, “Your body is your temple; what you put in is what you get out.” In any case, the buzz isn’t for everyone. Big deal. I never understood why people were so concerned with what was in my cup anyway – it’s MY cup. I guess it’s true; misery does love company. Drunken bastards. Then at 20, I actually mustered the chutzpah to make out with 4 guys – juice by me! (one of them actually became my boyfriend though – so much for giving the no-strings-attached thing a chance at life), and a few months shy of turning 21, I lost my virginity. Ouch.

During my late-teen years, apart from hitchhiking but only a million times, sleeping at someone’s gate during winter with a group of friends, attending almost every Pens Down party (when it was still very much relevant) and some other wacky stuff I did with tons more awesome people, I skidded through onto my adulthood years barely scarred, proudly hoisting and flaunting my flag of “Best Freaken Childhood Ever, Anyway!”

Still though, I think I must’ve missed the memo: “Been there, done that, got the T-Shirt… when it mattered.” In other words, Live Fast, Die Young. In that case, my breakthrough stage was nothing short of passé, in social terms, void of real adventure and too much on the safe side. I half-past missed that main bus.

But that doesn’t matter. I was more than happy to catch the next one. It arrived just on time for me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a late-bloomer. Okay, I still look 15, and yes, I don’t have a degree (yet), but all that time of self-taught learning -- inspired by my incredible parents, is finally paying off, and life seems to have given the cool-kids of my time one helluva slap of a wake up call. They’re in the doldrums wondering, “Whatever happened to the good ol’ days?” Others are desperately still painting the town red, hoping to relive that hometown glory feeling with under-18s-gone-wild who wonder why they have to party with grandpa and his friends. I’ll call it “Nerds Revenge”. Good God, you have such a great sense of humour! We all do get some action in the end -- all in moderation and at the best time. So don’t sweat under pressure; keep your own cuppa-cool flowing.

As for the next bus? It’s actually a plane… It should be landing any moment now -- ready to take my loved ones and I to a pretty island-like oasis overseas where I intend to live out the rest of my destiny. No worries, I won’t be late for this one; I’ll be early by at least 15 minutes.

-Tracy Wilbon