I idled between responding again, or leaving it be. Talking to strangers isn’t necessarily my strong suit. While it may seem I am confident, I often diction better than most. Crosshairs occur, and suddenly I am egoistical and besides myself.
I breathed deeply, thumb hovering over the tab for his name. Then a brief pause – is it that serious?
Yes.
I breathe deep again. I asked him.
He did take a look at what I brought up, but no notes. I swallowed my pride and laid down my ego ages ago…
We don’t chase…
I type out my message – quick and to the point. Unsure of the response time, my phone pinged and I panicked.
Oh my god…he answered!
He had a very good reason, and then I felt sheepish. Probably in the same sense as he did. What was tongue tied yet professional and high strung was now toppling over as I tried to grip myself from answering in a sarcastic manner, or saying something that could bruise his ego.
I reassured him. Then I laughed at myself.
We were so tightly wound, we both fumbled. But inherently, I am kinder out loud than in my head. Am I really that intimidating?
Biting my lip, I responded to him smoothing it over, his response even more clearer than the previous and I realize I put so much fear into a simple conversation. But it appears he did the same.
The edges are no longer sharp, and the barricades have been taken down. How foolish of us to think we’d keep floating if we remained rigid.
Sitting back, I mull over every thing I held to my chest, and how none of it fit the impression first given to me. His first act was – he actually did what he said he was going to do.
I’m sharing this exchange because we spend so much time in our heads, actual human interaction seems to be impossible. Almost to the point that we prefer the actors playbill we wrote out rather than actuality itself.
What if we both held on to our beliefs and ignored our mishaps. Instead of gaining twisted ankles because we refuse to look for stones in the grass.
You can imagine the night sky all you want, but your idea of it will never be as vast as the real thing.