"This woman lives the life I want to live, I thought to myself."

Larissa Kaye Batten (LLbeara@aol.com) writes "Soul Food," a weekly column for SpiritSite.com.  

Larissa is a prolific writer whose work has been featured in several publications.

Heather left her job in the financial district of London to buy an old rectory in Cong, Ireland, and live her dream.

I quit my job in the Wall Street area of New York City about 10 years ago to find my own dream.

Heather and her husband converted their old rectory into a gorgeous home with a rental cottage and a fabulous art studio in the Irish fields of flowers and cows.

I walked around lost for a bunch of years, found my dream, met my soulmate, adopted three dogs, and bought my dream cottage in the woods in Bluffton, South Carolina.

Heather began to paint her heart out.

I started to write books, stories, articles, and poetry from the soul.

Heather taught artists' workshops.  

I facilitated writers' workshops.

Heather painted the flowers of Ireland. 

I wrote from the inspiration of Ireland.

Heather nestled up to the quiet artist's life in the very Irish town where The Quiet Man, starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, was filmed.

I found myself struggling with my very own dream. 

I could not reconcile my intense desire to live the quiet writer's life with the notion that "normal" people like Ivy League graduates are supposed to work in offices, make money, and order takeout Chinese food a lot.

Heather would paint for hours and days at a time, while her husband would travel on business.

I would beat myself up mentally for spending too much time alone, not having enough friends, and living my own dream instead of somebody else's.

Heather kept painting.

I kept questioning myself.

Heather didn't know me, and I didn't know Heather.

We lived our own lives in our own countries, and yet there was something so familiar, so soulful about our parallel stories.

"When the student is ready, the teacher appears," the saying goes.  "When the teacher is ready, the student appears," according to the opposite side of the same coin.

I believe we are all teachers, and we are all students.

For 29 years of my life, I had never even heard of Heather and Heather had never heard of me.

"Let's go to Ireland for our honeymoon," I had suggested to my husband. We had always known we would honeymoon there. I had been to Ireland a number of times, and believe my soul was born there.

My husband had never been to Ireland, and he had always wanted to go.

We chose to stay in a quaint cottage in Cong, Ireland, called The Old Rectory.  We knew nothing more than the fact that an artist named Heather owned The Old Rectory.

My husband and I saved our coins for a long, long time, bought our tickets to Ireland, and made our way to Cong.

We moved into our little old Irish cottage with a turf fire before we even met the owner. She had left us a key and an open door.

We met her the next morning.

"Hi, I'm Lara," I said.

"And I'm Heather," she said.

And so, the relationship between two more students and two more teachers was born.

I spent a few hours over the next week in the main house of The Old Rectory with my new friend, teacher, and student Heather.  We discovered we had much in common.

But there was one main difference:  Heather did not question the quiet, slow, creative life she had chosen.

I, on the other hand, was mired in my own confusion.

"How do you have such acceptance?" I asked Heather a number of times. "I want so much to accept what I do, but it's hard."

"I love what I do," Heather said simply over her Irish tea.

We were chilled by the Irish winter, and yet I was so warm amidst her cozy kitchen and Rectory of Dreams.

This woman lives the life I want to live, I thought to myself. It was not so much the way she described her life.  It was the simple way she lived her life. I could see she did not question it.

After each time I talked to Heather, I would dance back to my little cottage with the turf fire to share with my new husband the glorious inspiration I continued to receive at The Old Rectory.

"She's doing what I've always wanted to do," I told my husband.

"I can see how happy you are," he would respond. Only a precious soul like my husband would be so free and forgiving on our honeymoon to let me dance over to Heather's each day or so.

"It's like I'm finally living my dream," I said to my husband, "but I fight it. It's like this voice keeps telling me, 'you're not supposed to be this happy. Why don't you have more friends? Why aren't you living like the rest of the world, working and being normal?'"

"This is your life, this is your dream. This is your work," my husband reminded me.

I would curl up into my own thoughts and whimper to myself over all of my negative thoughts.

Then something strange began to happen.

I began to think more and more of Heather. Heather, who was living her dream. Heather who was grateful for her dream. Heather, who accepted her dream.

What a peace she had.

How much I fought.

What an acceptance she had.

How much I questioned.

What a love she had for her work.

I did, too.

Really, I was no different than Heather and her Rectory of Dreams.

I had created for myself the life of my own dreams. I had so much in common with Heather, and yet I had this nagging feeling that would drag me down.

Quite frankly, I was consumed in guilt over my own happiness.

Heather was not.

I could watch Heather and see in her what I wanted in myself.

I wanted her serenity. I wanted her peace of mind.

Slowly, very slowly, she began to rub off on me.  I couldn't be around Heather and not see that I had the potential to have the very same acceptance. It would take time, surely. But every dream deserves the time of a lifetime.

After a week in Cong, my husband and I moved on.

I said goodbye to Heather, and I knew I might never see her again. But I already knew Heather of the Rectory of Dreams.

Heather was myself, farther along on my journey. Heather was myself with the quiet acceptance of God. 

Heather reflected to me what I would one day find in myself.  Heather passed on to me what I would hopefully some day pass on to another.

Heather was another creative soul with the grace of trust in her process.

Maybe Heather wasn't only my teacher; maybe she was my student, too.

Maybe I reflected back to Heather the joy of her own life.

Maybe I showed Heather what a true gift she had been given.

I have found in my life that the people who have touched me the most aren't necessarily the ones whom I have known for long periods of time.

I might never see the Rectory again. I might never see Heather again.  But in my own soul, I have my own Rectory now. 

A rectory is defined as a residence of a leader or director.

My director is God, my rectory is my soul, and my dream is my own.

Amen.

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