"No worries, be safe."

I behave terribly in terms of being on time. I am almost always on time and give my friends such a hard time about being punctual that I think they are all rather scared of me.

I remember there was once I went out with a girlfriend and I was slightly late...and she told me that while waiting for me that she wondered if she "was at the wrong place because Chin Ting is never late!"

So today, serving in Sunday school, I woke up late and messaged the team to inform them that I was running late...and my team leader replied, "No worries, be safe."

I was awed by her reply. Wow. Not only is she not mad at me (and be scolded as I think I deserve), she was even concerned about my safety....

It made me wonder why I have such a huge (and crazy) reaction whenever my friends were late..... (and I have to be clear..I am only usually terribly punctual when going out with friends but not so particular in terms of work or school)

Why? Cos my underlying belief might be that when a person is late, the person does not care...and  does not cherish the friendship.. ( and school/ work is nothing personal directed to any one individual..)

or it could be learned behaviour from my dad... who throws a fit every time we have to go anywhere and insists that we all leave an hour EARLY... I suspect it has something to do with his childhood abandonment issues...... that when people are late, people with abandonment issues start playing back negative tapes and start freaking out that the person is going to abandon them.. (no, I cannot claim credit for this theory.... Karrolyn Merriman talked about it...)

but yeah, I think the bottom line is that I take my friends' being late personally..... as if they were doing something to me when in fact it is not and it could just be due to something else in their lives... (in mitigation, I was late this morning cos I have been sick and not able to sleep the night before..which obviously has nothing to do with my Sunday school team mates..)

so hopefully, this part of the puzzle has been unravelled....and we should see if I still behave in a crazy way the next time a friend is late...