You stand there watching the numbers light up one at a time, willing them faster, actually annoyed that it is stopping on four. Oh, you have so much time. You just don't know it yet.
Look at what you do in here. You catch your reflection in the brushed steel doors, that warped smeary version of your face, and you check your hair, your posture, whether you look tired. You always think you look tired. From here I can tell you: you looked fine. You looked young in a way you could not possibly feel from the inside.
There is a stranger beside you, both of you staring at the same slow numbers, both pretending the other is not there. You will do this thousands of times and remember none of them. And yet the particular hum of this box, the little lurch when it settles, the way your stomach drops half a second before the doors open, your body knew all of that so well it stopped noticing.
Someday you will live somewhere with only stairs, and your knees will make the decision for you, and you will think, without any drama at all, about the year you rode up to the ninth floor every evening with your whole life still ahead of you and a bag of groceries cutting into your hand.
So this is all I ask. When the doors open, do not rush out. Let the stranger go first.
You are not late for anything that matters.