The Pot of Gold is NOT at the End of the Rainbow

I've always been a big dreamer, a rainbow chaser.

I remember growing up with a mother legally crazy, a father always gone, and a step-mother who could have given any fairy book step-mother a serious run for their money in the evil department and thinking -one day I'm leaving this place. I dreamt about my escape every day. And one day I did it. I left that place. For good.

I remember at university I went to "Out of Africa" with a friend on a hot summer Saturday afternoon. All we wanted was a room that was air conditioned, but I was surprised to find a new rainbow. I came out of the theatre, and as my eyes adjusted from the inside darkness to the outside brightness, I said, "One day I want to live in a place like that", and I followed that rainbow until I found the place where I live at the end of it.

Not so long ago I thought- I wish one day I could have a book published. Another dream to head toward, another rainbow followed. One dream after another, rainbows followed up and then down to their eventual ends.

This last week I received my author copies of Signed, Hopelessly in Love. I put a photo of the stack on Facebook with a status that said, "I'm a little bit happy". It's book number fourteen to be published, actually more than that if you throw in textbooks and nonfiction, but number fourteen for my fiction. It's not that I'm becoming blase about the event. It's just that when the book is finally finished, printed and bound, going out to do whatever it is it might be able to do, then I feel like my job is over, the dream has been accomplished. I feel like I've reached the end of my rainbow.

I don't see my books as my "babies" as some authors do. It's sort of the opposite for me. In the case of my children, once they were born the journey started. Now all of the wonderful things could be discovered about them and about me with them. But a book is born at the end of the journey. Books are sort of anti-babies for me.

My books are products of my hard work. Of my imagination. Writing is it for me. I'm proud of my books, I'm happy with myself for having produced them. I'm happy when readers enjoy them. But to be honest, I've found once the book comes out, for me it's as if everything is over and there's a bit of sadness in that. A lot of my other rainbows have been like that too.

Most people believe when our dreams are answered we'll be happy. We believe at the end of the rainbow there really is a pot of gold. But I've found it's not quite like that. For me there are bits of gold everywhere along the way and at the end of the rainbow? Well, at the end I'm just done, done collecting my bits of gold and now I must go looking for another rainbow.