What You See is Not Always What You Get

When I closed my eyes a year ago and imagined what my life would be like today, it wasn't this.

In May of '09, That Rebel was just a glitter in my eye and an itch I'd yet to scratch. I'd had a blog a few years before, but after Mama died in 2006, it petered out. So did my motivation to continue shopping publishers for the children's book I had written. Oh, and let's not forget the income stream that turned in to a trickle that same year.

What I saw in my imagination, was me in Southern California doing what I was already doing. Or me in a little beach town somewhere in the U.S. I would escape and find work in a coffee shop or, better yet, a book store that served brewed tea and lattes, a place where the locals met to dish. I had a wild fantasy of running away from my practice and financial obligations. I'd make enough money to cover room and board, and have a beater car with no payments. My life would be simple and free from stress and the enormous responsibility of being a doctor.

My dream did not include the North Georgia mountains, nor building another practice. I was writing, but the what was a mystery. It didn't feel like another children's book, though I had a whole series of Frank and Ernies plotted out. There was love, but certainly not love lost.

Today I started a three day training class to be an enumerator for the 2010 Census. Not just an enumerator. An enumerator reinterviewer. We'll be contacting one out of ten households to confirm the authenticity of the data that was garnered on the first pass. Sounds exciting, huh? Probably not. But I get paid. Having had my own business for the last twelve years, it feels good to know I'll get a weekly paycheck for a couple of months, plus 50 cents a mile. Out here in the boonies that can rack up. The work will be done on the phone and in the field in the same small town as my practice. Meeting all those folks should be good for business, right? But, when I closed my eyes a year ago, I certainly didn't see me doing this.

I believe, along with the great teachers and religions,  that I create what I see and what I believe. It's dangerous to dwell in misery, because crap begets crap. Conversely, awesomeness begets awesomeness. I can look at my life on the surface today and recite all the reasons why what I saw is NOT what I got.

But is that true? Of course not. I dreamed of escaping and I did. I dreamed of being out from under that financial burden, and the T. Rex is down to a smaller Linheraptor. I saw myself in a beach town. While the closest beach is a few hours away, I did land in a mountain resort town. I got the paid-for beater car, ragtop and all. I am NOT building a full-time practice, just a small town, part-time one.

And I'm writing. That Rebel is my sounding board; it's where I rant, whine and philosophize and hone my writerly skills. It's the watering hole where I come to drink and my soul gets its fill. That Rebel was the springboard for my current work in progress; a southern fiction that was born right here; on these back roads in the foothills of the Appalachians.

I left the womb of Southern California and all my worldly stuff. I stepped out, in to the void. I crashed. Hard. Then I thrashed around for a while. But in the middle of all that thrashing, I found something else. I found you guys. I found my writing. And I found myself.

What I see IS what I get. Just not necessarily in the exact form that I imagine. What is your dream? Are you living it? Or are you missing the miracle by dwelling in the negative, like I was for so long?

~ That Rebel, Olivia J. Herrell