I Have Become My Dream

As a junior in high school, my English teacher looked at me with raised eyebrows when she handed me my graded essay paper. I saw the red markings in the empty margin and the "A" grade. I wish I still had that paper.

My first fiction writing experience

In high school, I loved English and Science. English because I had a passion for language. Science because I embraced research. Little did I know then that I would marry research and language into my writing as the years ran by.

My English teacher's name was Mrs. Johnson. A common name, but so was mine. She was a petite older woman getting ready to retire. She had gray hair and her gold-framed glasses used to hang onto her nose as her focus rose above the frames right at you. She always dressed professionally with matching high heels and jewelry. She used to take small steps as though her heels were painful to walk in. I had her for both my sophomore and junior English years. I didn't think I was so lucky at the beginning of the second year with her, but as it turned out, I came to appreciate that class and her instruction more.

When I was a junior, Mrs. Johnson assigned a fiction writing project - a short story with some dialogue. Creating dialogue can be challenging and being a perfectionist, I wanted to make sure my paper was as well-written as it could be at the age of 16. I still don't embrace writing fiction, but appreciate those who can write it with so much grace.

The subject of my paper came alive

Although I was born in Louisiana, I didn't live there for a long period of time. My dad was in the Air Force, so after my brother and I were born, my family was transferred to Idaho. Through the age of 13, we would sometimes visit Louisiana to see family when able. On those visits, my cousins and I would take walks in the country on gravel roads, see the old general-type store with the unused old style gas pump out front, and I would learn about poverty. It's also where I learned the word, segregation, a word that makes my skin crawl to this day.

Pulling on my imagination from the walks down those country roads with the sound of trains in the background, I came up with an idea about my birth city in northern Louisiana that relied on a paper mill as one of the sources of employment. I remembered the mill's smokestacks. I remembered the damp humidity and sweat coming down my forehead on those old roads.

I decided my story would revolve around the mill shutting down and the effects of people losing their jobs. Because life experience is a tool to pull from when writing, I took the visuals of the poverty, the scenes on the gravel roads, the division of color I saw, and the paper mill and rolled them into a handwritten story with dialogue. The desire to show my teacher I could write something meaningful was my motivation.

I still remember the day I turned in that paper. I was happy. I believed in that paper. I rocked my words as I put them to rest on the blue ruled lines on the paper. Even then, my imagination never took a vacation. Writing dialogue wasn't so bad after all. Once my head got into the story, I started feeling the characters come alive. The scene with the young girl walking against the gravel staring up at the smokestacks, well, that was me.

On the day our graded papers were returned, Mrs. Johnson came over to me, handed me my red-inked graded paper, and asked, "Did you write this?" "Of course," I said. Then she went on to tell me how good it was and that I used my imagination well. She was so surprised I wrote that story. And for a couple of days at least, when I walked into the classroom, I kept wondering why she needed to confirm whether I wrote it. Was it my lack of class participation or did she think I talked too much? Who else would have written it?

Time does not stand still for pen and paper

The desire to write didn't have room for another 15 years because I was raising children, selling Girl Scout cookies, sewing Halloween costumes, and working in a law firm. Then a six-year stalling of a divorce.

At 40, I went to Europe because I believed the only way I could see the country I lived in was by stepping out of it. And I needed to prove to myself that I could travel alone. When I returned, I went to college and majored in English Journalism. I craved learning about all the authors and loved writing all the long-term papers, and preparing for a literature symposium.

Turn a corner, and I would then start caring for my parents which, again, gave me more topics to write about. Working for a law firm, however, would fuel my imagination with Part 2 of the old Dolly Parton movie, 9 to 5. You want ideas and people to write about, be observant of your place of employment.

When time pushed me into the experience of having grandchildren, I started asking myself what I was waiting for. Fast forward to 2010, I started research for a book involving an 80-year-old cold case. I spent 10 years researching and writing and I now finally have the time to complete that book.

Enter COVID-19. I spent all of 2020 working for six attorneys, then seven. I painted ocean scenes all summer during 2020 because I wasn't leaving the house. For 10 months, I worked from home. It was a very productive year for my office even while most employees were working from home.

Great people, but I was done with that life chapter. And after you top wonderful evaluations, how does it get better? I fulfilled a goal.

Time for the next mountain. I grew with my job, and I grew as a person. I was confident it was time to stop waiting, so in early May 2021, I resigned. We were all sad and they were kind. I knew, though, I had to stop waiting.

I took the summer to drain my work brain. September marked the beginning of what I wanted to do all my life. It's no longer a dream. I'm a writer.

© Cathy Coombs

About the Author

I retired early from a 9 to 5 job as a senior-level legal secretary to write full time. I have a B.A. in English Journalism & Creative Writing which confirmed my love of literature and a drive to read and write 10 hours a day. I churn five decades of living experience into redefining perspectives.