Life with Subplots, by Lori Roberts Herbst

 I think I love you, so what am I so afraid of?

Last weekend, I was rocking out to Partridge Family tunes (you’re welcome for that image) and thinking back to junior high school. Back then, my life’s goal was to become a Hollywood actress and marry John Travolta (whom my mother insisted on calling John Revolting). I had recently outgrown David Cassidy, though I might still have accepted his proposal had it been forthcoming.

 

In high school, I morphed into a journalist wannabe, idolizing Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, and Barbara Walters. I join
ed and eventually became editor-in-chief of my high-school newspaper, dreaming of my future as a reporter with The Washington Post. 

 

During my college days, my journalistic quest lost its allure. Instead, I thought of the inspirational teachers who had touched my life, and I decided that my destiny lay in education.

And no matter my ultimate career choice, I always knew I wanted a family of my own.

 

Throughout the changing possibilities fighting for control, a voice within whispered about writing books. Wouldn’t it be fun? she asked.

 

But I couldn’t do it all. I need to quash most of the identities grappling for dominance. 

 

So, I became a teacher, first of English and then of journalism, and spent twenty-four years learning, laughing, and guiding hundreds of teenage students. I married a fabulous man (forty years last December) and had tw
o extraordinary daughters. Life raced along, the joy and the tears, the work and the play weaving a tapestry of my life.

 

Then I decided it was time to try something new, so I got a master’s degree in counseling and worked for six years as a high school counselor before retiring in 2014.

 

I glanced up and discovered that I was fifty-two years old. The whispering voice of the aspiring writer I thought I’d stifled many years ago became a roar. She was alive and well and demanding her turn.

 

At first, I tried to quiet her. I told her she was too old—that she would make a fool of us. Nobody starts writing books in her fifties, I said. For three years, I suppressed her. When she tried to sneak into my brain, devising stories, plots, characters, I shoved her aside and moved on to something else, something more “in keeping” with my stage in life. Volunteering. Cross stitching. Lunching with friends. 

 

But it was as if I was trying to hold back a tsunami with a dinner plate. My alter ego would not be ignored. Finally, I turned towards her. I think I love you, so what am I so afraid of? 

I acquiesced to her demands and wrote my first book. And rewrote. And revised. And edited. And finally published at age fifty-eight. Now, at sixty-one, I’m about to publish my sixth.

 

Not only did I surrender to the insistent inner voice, I listened to the people who encouraged (nagged) me to follow it. I am grateful every day for their support.

 

Conceding to that voice taught me the wisdom of the verse "for everything there is a season." I wasn’t ready to be a writer back then. I was a decent mother and teacher and counselor, and I'm thankful I didn't miss out on those experiences. In fact, they provided seeds for the stories I now wish to tell.

I’ve discovered you can do it all. Maybe not at the same time—probably not at the same time. But life is long, and I have plenty of time to drink it to the lees.

 

What is the thing you always wanted to do? How do you honor it?

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Lori Roberts Herbst writes the Callie Cassidy Mysteries, a cozy mystery series set in Rock Creek Village, Colorado. To find out more and to sign up for her newsletter, go to www.lorirobertsherbst.com