I'm Sorry Mom (everyone).

Only pre 9/11 people will understand.

The time in my life has finally come, where I have to reconcile with reality. Confront true-truths of the world head-on. To account for the man I am, and admit to myself and the world who Conor Bifulco really is. What Conor Bifulco really is. Conor Bifulco is 25 and is struggling with the fact that he is turning into his mother. I’m 25, how could I already be turning into my mother? A process that surely begins in your late 50s, my mother isn’t even in her late 50s. I don’t even think she’s 50!

In life, I try very hard not to be a hypocrite. I bring hypocrisy up because it’s a plague of my generation, which is young, the young generation, I am young, I am not “late 50’s” or becoming my mother. Im a big boy and my own man. Heh, Hemingway was actually older than me when he published his first book, so— oh God, not the Hemingway comparison in paragraph two, let’s take a beat. Let’s take a breather.

My problem with becoming my mother stems from the fact that I used to make fun of her for the things that I now do. Aren’t I a real peach of a son? The thing I would make fun of her for more than anything else was her inability to leave on time. An inability to leave the house without doing 30 other random tasks first, and now here I am, doing the exact same thing.

My whole (youthful) life, I could be found waiting by the door, tapping my foot, waiting for my beloved mother to finish her whole house spring cleaning that she just decided to do, for seemingly no other reason than— we have to leave. We could be heading to Sunday brunch, or someone could be threatening Manhattan with a bomb; it wouldn’t matter. The dishwasher must be emptied, the saucers polished, the cabinets filled, and the curtains dusted. I used to think this behavior was insane. I used to think things like: “Heck, can’t she see I wanna go see the new Star Wars movie? Heck, older generations are so silly, not me, not a Zoomer, we wanna hit the streets, really live life, man, go to record stores and pretend we actually like Bob Dylan’s later work.”

See, look at how pithy and honest that internal Gen-Z dialogue was. That’s because I actually used to think like that. Which is proof of being young if I’ve ever seen it. Me, young. Young man. That’s what I am. Younger than Hemingway was when he wrote his first book, that’s the kind of young Im talking about, man! I’ll write my own first book way before him. It’s coming. Im working on it. I have time; I’m not concerned… Who are you again?

The worst part of it all is that I’m not even learning this from a useful bout of self-recognition. I’m akin to a drunk, finding out no one thinks he’s the “funny guy” and the “life of the party.” They think he needs serious help. It turns out being late does not, in fact, make you “fashionable” or “quirky.” Slowly, my fiancé started pointing this out to me. She used hints and phrases like “We should really try to get out of the house early this time,” “Have you noticed the clocks on your phone, wrist, and wall?” Most impacting of all is what I heard her say at a friend’s place during dinner: “Yeah, Conor finds timed commitments, us needing to really leave, as the perfect opportunity to do everything short of splitting the atom.”

Did she really say “splitting the atom?” No clue. That’s just because I have no idea what she was actually saying, because I wasn’t there yet to hear it. I was still in the kitchen, back at home, in a suit and tie, deciding if I needed a rinse aid for my one-cup, two-saucer dishwasher load.

Headed to a party at a friend’s, I made the grave mistake of saying, “It’s so nice to be getting to someplace on time, right?!” My fiancé stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, turned to face me, and with a furrowed brow said, “Bear, what?”

“I just,” I said with in-the-moment confidence only a man can provide. “It’s nice to know we’re gonna be so early, looks like we’re those people now.”
“We’re ten minutes away now, the party is at 7:30, it’s currently 7:40.”
“Oh, I thought with the sun being out and all, 7:30 is night, the sun is still out, so it didn’t seem like night.”
“Bear, you have a watch. Why are you telling time by the sun?”

“Maybe it’s daylight savings or something? Or it was.” I looked down at my watch.
She held my hand, like a child might hold a newborn puppy. A bit too strong, but caring all the same.

“Bear, it’s February.”

“Is that a yes on daylight savings just having happened, or what?”
The conversation stopped there. The slow walker that I am, we made it to the party about 4 minutes later than her earlier “tragically late” estimate. Hey, we at least made it and had a spotless kitchen waiting for us back at home.

I’m not an inconsiderate friend, a playful neurotic, I’m not lazy, or bad at reading time, I’m not an addict, an ass— all of those would make me seem like a bad person. Descriptors like that would require real critical self-analysis, and thank God, because I don’t want to have to do that. I make it on time to loads of things, but just not to everything every time. For one, Im never late to a doctor’s appointments, and my apartment really is quite clean, but I do know how much better I need to be. It needs to be out of respect for myself and for others.

I added a calendar widget to my phone’s homescreen. I’ve started to use alarms on my phone when I know that I have something coming up, and I even set them early! In many ways, these aids are making things psychologically worse for me, because even with all this technological assistance, I am still not “Conor 100% on time". I’m far from really late anymore, closer to “Conor 85% on time,” but I’m rarely “Conor come early.” It’s one thing to fail, it’s another thing to fail with equipment. Before, I could just think, “hey forgetful me, that’s who I am,” but now it feels like I’ve got an iPhone-sized post-it note on my forehead that reads “BOZO.”

As I said, I am getting better bit by bit, because I’m not a lost cause. I’ll become “Conor always on time” one day, because hey, Ironic or not, I’ve got plenty of time. I am young, and before you react, before you question my youth one last time. Just remember: I opened this piece by blaming it all on my mother.