She walked out the door, tossed her keys in her bag, and headed directly into town, on foot. It was a brisk day, not freezing cold, but there was a chill in the air. She always wore layers and loved the brisk days because on those days layering seemed to be socially acceptable, not that she cared what people thought anyway. Today, she wore an extra jacket with an insulated hood, which she pulled over her head to keep the wind from blowing her hair into her eyes as she crossed the street to exit her neighborhood.
The coffee shop was just a few blocks from her house. It was your typical small town coffee shop equipped with baristas who made small talk and art work by local artists occasionally hanging on the walls. She didn’t care that she had already had 2 cups of coffee that morning or that the vanilla latte she was about to order was going to cost $3.89. That latte would probably be the only thing she would buy for the next three days. She would sit in the coffee shop for hours some days just doing work, writing, researching, thinking, and creating. Today was one of those days.
She created many things, although she wasn’t the creative type. She couldn’t draw, or paint, or sing, and she wasn’t crafty. She could create almost anything in her mind though, scenarios, solutions to problems, ideas, goals, and most importantly dreams. People do not have the ability to see what she is doing each day but she knew what she was doing and that was enough for her. As she sat there and worked on her computer she knew that she was chasing her dreams. She knew that it didn’t matter what other people saw because she could see beyond the quizzical nature of the naysayers around her, she could see so far beyond the criticism and the skepticism people offered when she told them what she was doing, she could see beyond these things because she had a gift. Her gift was creating, creating the future. She always said you didn’t need a psychic or a fortune teller to tell you what your future holds, you just need a dream and plan for achieving it because the future is yours to create.
After a few hours in the coffee shop she put on her coat, pulled the hood up, placed her computer in her bag, and walked out the door only turning around to wave to the friendly barista. She walked straight to the center of town and stood at the cross walk observing her surroundings as she waited for the traffic to break. When it finally did, she crossed the street with her hands in her pockets. She walked forward.
The Road Less Run 