Time is a strange concept for me. Time management has never been something I was good at understanding. I just have no concept of time and how it works.

Writing stories takes me hours while others get done in minutes. I was never a good standardized test taker because I never could finish in the allotted time. When I pick up my pace, I start to make mistakes.

Slow and methodical have been words used to describe me over the years. At my retail job, they always had me doing the more technical tasks because they said I was the only one patient enough to figure it out.

In addition to working at a reduced rate of speed, I also have trouble with how much sleep I get.

In high school and college, I enjoyed sleeping in until mid-day. Once I was out of school and got a job, I started to get up earlier. I spent a whole summer getting up at 4:30 a.m. twice a week to go workout. I rarely slept passed 8 a.m. on mornings I wasn’t at the gym or work. It was really great feeling like I did something with my day.

When I went back to school I started falling back into my old sleeping habits, but I still almost never slept passed 9 a.m. Now, for some reason, all I want to do is sleep.

I’ve always been one for staying up late, but it’s getting harder to wake up these days. All those years of staying up late and getting up early must have caught up with me.

I have always been proud of the fact I was able to function on little sleep. I really don’t like the scattered feeling of waking up well into the day, but it seems to be a default with me lately.

The time concept gets even worse for me when it comes to being punctual.

I’m typically not the most punctual person. Sometimes I just sleep through my alarm or my alarm doesn’t go off at all, but more often than that, I just can’t wrap my head around how long it takes to do things. I think I can do everything in just a few minutes.

Punctual people sometimes give late-comers a bad rap. Accusations of carelessness and disrespect abound, and sometimes that might be warranted. For me, I honestly think it’s a mental block.

Trust me, I feel bad about being slow. I don’t like to think about people waiting on me. It’s embarrassing, and yet, it continues to happen.

Life would be a lot easier if I could get this whole thing figured out because the world we live in is based on time. I don’t know what it is that makes time a hard concept for people like me, but maybe one day I’ll get it together. Until then, please know I really am trying.