This morning, feeling a bit stressed and anxious in my actual life, I decided to take a little virtual vacation and research my alternate lives on Google.  I typed in my first and last name, wondering about the big questions, “Who am I?  What am I accomplishing with my life?” 

I’m happy to report I’m doing interesting work all over the nation.  I’m a psychoanalyst in Missouri, an antiques collector in Georgia, and a professional chef in Nashville, Tennessee.  I make pastries – beautiful, decadent pastries!  

I’m a real estate agent in California, and I’m really struggling right now, but my dentist practice in Oregon is expanding.   We specialize in helping people who are terrified of dentists.  We are very liberal with the laughing gas.   

I won the lottery!  Okay, not the big one, just $25,000, but it sounds great and I look very excited posing with my big check.  I also won a National Merit Scholarship.  Go me! 

I’m a college volleyball player, and several sports articles keep dinging me for my “attack errors.”  (Hate it when I mistakenly attack!)  I’m helping a friend in her struggles with obesity, and I’m getting married all over the place. 

I’m a librarian in Pennsylvania known for my “professionalism and friendly manner.”  I wear loose, flowing shirts, dangly earrings, long hair, and some very-retro librarian glasses.  I like my smile.  I also write book reviews for Amazon.  Very few people read them, but everyone who did found them helpful. 

I’m kind of a looker.  I’m confident and buff in that volleyball jersey, and in my Alabama University photo, I look like a young, healthy Lindsey Lohan.  I look exquisitely happy with my hub and our dog posing on a sunny Mexico beach.  One of my Facebook pages has some pretty questionable pics.  Really, girl, you should hide that particular tattoo.  Shorten my name, and I’m also an African American gentleman from Germany who wears bowties.   

I was intrigued to find that I am a biomedical expert “researching internal and external bacteria carried by broiler chickens for the food processing industry.”  I conduct microbial colony counts of campylobacter, salmonella, and enterobacteriaceae.  Some of my work is literal chickenshit, and though the site doesn't say this directly, I'm betting I'm a committed vegetarian. 

I’m a family practice doctor, and maybe my photo is not so glamorous, but there’s something about the lack of makeup and gentle smile that makes me think that people trust me with their medical problems.   

The real me, the me I know, pops up just twice, on Google page 5  – school board member and writer of a few long-ago newspaper articles. 

And then, on Google page 8, I suddenly die, with no warning, at the age of 48.  I’m cremated and my ashes are scattered on a pretty hillside in Kentucky.  Thirty or so friends and family members are gathered to say their goodbyes.  They’ve planted a red dogwood tree in my memory.

Maybe you'd like to take your own virtual journey and Google your alternate lives today.  Maybe, like me, you'll start to wonder what things of worth you can add to your list this week, this day, because it is a bit jarring to see your name in print, and how you came to the end of things, suddenly, unexpectedly, on Google page 8.