Always Late: A Reflection on Unreliability and Self-Discovery
In this personal essay from Granta, writer Anna Metcalfe explores the psychological dimensions of chronic lateness. Drawing parallels with the character Little Miss Late, Metcalfe recounts her year of consistently arriving late to therapy sessions. She describes lateness not merely as a flaw, but as a seductive mechanism for achieving invisibility and escaping societal expectations. The narrative details a specific incident where she lies to a taxi driver about her profession, revealing her desire to inhabit the anonymous role of the analyst rather than the patient. Through therapy, she confronts her fear that she lacks a 'true self,' referencing psychoanalytic theories by D.W. Winnicott and Alice Miller. Ultimately, Metcalfe illustrates how therapy transformed from a source of resistance into an investigative process of co-creating her identity. While she no longer struggles with punctuality, she retains a respect for the rebellious pleasure of unreliability as a means to test reality and reclaim life from rigid structures of respectability.
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Always Late: A Reflection on Unreliability and Self-Discovery
In this personal essay from Granta, writer Anna Metcalfe explores the psychological dimensions of chronic lateness. Drawing parallels with the character Little Miss Late, Metcalfe recounts her year of consistently arriving late to therapy sessions. She describes lateness not merely as a flaw, but as a seductive mechanism for achieving invisibility and escaping societal expectations. The narrative details a specific incident where she lies to a taxi driver about her profession, revealing her desire to inhabit the anonymous role of the analyst rather than the patient. Through therapy, she confronts her fear that she lacks a 'true self,' referencing psychoanalytic theories by D.W. Winnicott and Alice Miller. Ultimately, Metcalfe illustrates how therapy transformed from a source of resistance into an investigative process of co-creating her identity. While she no longer struggles with punctuality, she retains a respect for the rebellious pleasure of unreliability as a means to test reality and reclaim life from rigid structures of respectability.
Granta