My identity felt it first, turning ghostly pale. Maybe I’d become overly ego involved, no longer dealing in ideas but self. To miss understanding my idea might mean I do not exist, or exist distinctly enough. I cannot even muster a decent me without connecting with you.

I’ll try the same message louder, I might even s-l-o-w down, hoping the disconnection came from faulty volume or hasty presentation. These tactics never work. Never.

My story seems too tied to time and place. I have misplaced the source along with other possibilities. I might begin again, absent more than the originating inspiration, also burdened by the missed understanding, restarting a country mile behind my original starting line. I begin behind, poisoned by the obvious perfection of my failed attempt, trying to recreate that feeling I know too well betrayed me last time.

I will miss my own understanding then, my innocent engagement, my well-intended attempt to share a small peek inside me. And I will feel terribly alone, unfairly bereft. I might simply stumble away from this missed understanding, sort of almost satisfied that I’d nailed something significant to nobody but me. I will then not even try to recraft my insight into something more universally digestible, savoring it in my personal larder instead.

Some misfires, though, won’t stifle so easily. These compel me to Big Bad Wolf blow down my offending construction, leaving this little pig homeless again. I might take refuge in my brother’s sturdier construction or wander in that deep, dark wood for a time. Later, perhaps much later, I will find reason for gratitude. I might find a surprising identity within the pile of pick-up sticks left behind: one unlikely undamaged two by four, one impossibly intact length of lath, one repurpose-able door knob attached to nothing anymore; nothing yet.

In that unbidden moment my mind will survey a future again, abandoning the passed missed understanding. Sure, I’ll try that again. One taste of possibility whets that indescribable appetite, and I’ll try again. I’ve missed understanding. Perhaps it’s been missing me, too.

©2013 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: Working, Writing, Living, Manifesting, BriefConsulting