What If I'm Lost?
“What if I’m lost?” I ask at 4:30 in the morning. My doubt has a certain chorus: What if I’m doing it wrong? And the family is breaking, or the children are in distress? What if I missed my work moment, trying to hold what I thought was My Life together? Tried holding my heart together through loss after loss and so many interruptions.
What if my marketing funnel got clogged or I accidentally threw it out with the recycling. What if I missed it. Fell behind. Got it wrong. Like a car veering to avoid a small animal and ending up crumpled in a ditch instead. What if in trying to avert disaster I’ve only created a bigger mess?
Next, I come rushing to my own rescue with Great New Plans. We will have a family meeting, we will talk in a Feelings Circle. We will heal at last. Live in peace. Smile at each other in the morning when we are still groggy.
I come up with similar plans for work. I will Boost The Signal and write my email list and sit at the laptop every day. I will let people see the things I make. I will get out of my own way. I will emerge—finally—as Just The Thing You Were Hoping For. The Just What You Need When You Can’t Sleep at Night. I will be Just The Thing for Your Friend Lisa, Too.
I will be for everyone.
It will be easy. So easy I throw back my head during interviews and laugh. “All I am doing is what I’ve done all along!” I will giggle at the world’s surprised discovery of me, as if it has finally gotten my joke. As if I’m the last one at Hide and Seek to be found. "Silly friends," my amused smile in dramatic portraits will say. "I was here all along." Like someone dressed to match the wallpaper, finally stepping forward with a small wave. Is this what it’s like to be found?
Or could it also happen in the grass, lying in a row of graves. Maybe it could be saying the thing that might lose you love, and playing the hand all the way through. A colleague’s voice saying: You’re not invisible even after all this time. All the calendars of strong-feeling days mixed with foggy ones.
You thought it was an equation, all your efforts adding up to something. But it was really your feet exploring forest floor, looking for a path.