My Last Text Message: Words Matter

The strangest thing about this entire sheltered in event is that I feel like I actually communicate more frequently with people than before—primarily via video calls and text messages. The stream of text messages is long, and the conversations are so varied.  From basic status updates—“I put money in your account for the desk”—to just trying to bring levity to the current situation—“1 week working from home together and cocktail hour has now moved up to 3:15.”  

My last text message sent: “I missed them!”

If you didn’t realize who I sent this to or the context in which it was used, it could go in so many different directions.  The only thing that makes this statement stand out is that I used an exclamation at the end…clearly, whatever it is I missed was important.  Or, at least the fact that I missed them was important.  

A few possible scenarios: 

Earlier in the week, I sent out an alert to my local friends that I had unfortunately miscalculated our toilet paper usage, and we were running low.  If anyone were to run across toilet paper at a local store, they were to text me immediately—which one of my friends did.  As soon as I got the text, I rushed to my local CVS just in time to see an empty shelf:  “I missed them!”

I have been connecting with a lot of high school friends—one of which shares my love of 80’s movies. Specifically, The Breakfast Club. Spending an afternoon texting each other lines from the movie, we challenged each other to see how many characters from the film we could name.  My friend got two more than me, and as soon as he named them, I texted: “I missed them!” 

The one thing I have loved about being forced to stay within the boundary of my neighborhood is all of the beautiful chalk messages being created on the sidewalks.  Knowing this is one of my favorite things, my friend sent her daughters down to my house to create a personal chalk message on my driveway.  When I rushed down my stairs to give them a little porch shout out, I realized that “I missed them!”

During a time when communication is vital, my clients are upping the output of their newsletters, blogs, and social media posts.  There’s a lot of writing happening, which means there is a lot of editing—and lots of opportunities for errors.  I have put in place a double-approve system for all content, meaning my clients need to have at least two people within their organization approve content before we publish.  One client sent me a quick text with a change that needed to be made to an outgoing e-mail campaign that I didn’t see in the draft: “I missed them!”

Only one of the scenarios above is true, but they all sound plausible. It’s amazing how our words can mean so many different things when taken out of context.  As I always say, “words matter”—what does your last text message say about you?