One At A Time

I learned about the art of meeting friends yesterday. I could say that I was successful to make time for FOUR friends in a day. But.. Was I happy? I hate to answer. Not really.

I knew, but it’d been long that I didn’t squeeze my time. I forgot that.. for friends is a big NO NO. I'd planned to meet a friend in the evening so I tried to fill-in the time before. Everything was unsure and I didn’t want to end up idle somewhere. So I texted TES to reschedule our appointment today to fill-in the time before the evening appointment. Squeeze number one.

YUG called before noon. We happily chatted and agreed to meet before my appointment with TES. Squeeze number two. It turned out.. I had to quickly finish my writing, quickly did my yoga (which I needed so badly), quickly prepared self before going out,.. all to meet the 14:00 appointment with YUG.

I was twenty minutes late. I could not help it. I had to yoga before I went. I need to loosen my stiff body. I set my Cinderella alarm to make sure I would not be late to enter
3-in-1 traffic to get to my evening appointment venue.

As before, talking with YUG was endless. We had a lot to talk about, to share, to discuss,.. An hour and half was never enough. It’s good that she came with me to train station on my way to PS. It was perfect to have her till she was off near the station. I went thru slow lane which was very crowded. Time was crawling. It’s almost 16:30 and I was still in the 3-in-1 area. I could not imagine what would happen if policemen found out that I was alone in the car. I was never in such situation.

I made it. I passed the area juuust after the time. And my telepathy friend RAD sensed my whereabouts. She asked me to have coffee with her. I said YES. Squeeze number three. She’s my savior before my appointment with TES. It was just perfect that she was around PS at the same time. We had a very nice talk before TES came around 19:00.

I already had split concentration. It turned out that I could have made my evening appointment earlier. And as predicted, TES wanted to see me to promote a product. Aaarghh.. It’s nice tho to show my attention to her but..
still but.. but I should not have sacrificed my priority. I tried to be 'there' with her while learning my lesson of squeezing time.

Two hours delay was the result. I made two unplanned meetings which were superb bonus, but my rescheduled appointment with TES cost me two hours late to meet my top priority. I learned my lesson to not give half attention to a friend. I have to accept the reality that Jakarta makes timing and planning impossible. What we can do is to free ample of time for each appointment. Never squeeze to fill-in the time. It would never work.

So when yesterday a friend asked me to have lunch today. I could only say Let’s see tomorrow. I have freed my half day for a special friend. I would never let myself repeating same mistake. One at a time.

Note: Picture of metal sculpture by Awan Simatupang 2005.