In 69 years she wakes to find her children all grown up and her husband dead. Peering out the frilly curtain of your child-friendly house, onto the street of the pleasant neighborhood you and your spouse had chosen when as newlyweds, she is utterly aware that she is all alone. This is what junior Ally Herbst has seen in her future, and this is the fear that has crippled her ability to be alone.
Two years ago, Herbst had a vision of her life taking that very turn. She compares herself to Raven, the psychic teenager on the Disney Channel show “That’s So Raven”, describing her visions as a form of deja vu which comes true within days of her experiencing it. She insists these feelings hit her randomly, and have come true every time they occurred.
“I was driving home from Wal-Mart,” Herbst said, beginning her story of one of her hunches that came true. “And this boy told me he’d just got done with practice. I got a feeling I would see him on a certain road and as I was driving down that road, suddenly he appeared in the place I envisioned seeing him.”
Although she has a strong fear of ending up alone, and continues to believe her vision will come true if she ever starts a family later in her life, Herbst hasn’t had any relationships. She said she doesn’t need a man; she has her friends.
“I can always turn to them,” Herbst said.
That sentence becomes true when Herbst describes her best friend and fellow vision-getter Katelyn Anderson. When she comes home to her empty house after school, instead of watching the television, she’ll immediately call up Anderson. Herbst insists Anderson knows everything about her, since she’ll call or text her random stories at anytime of the day. They’ll share their hunches with one another.
“I don’t mind her calling me,” Anderson said. “It shows she trusts me.”
Simple activities, such as attending a MAC Night (Publications work night), which must be done with a friend, are easier because her friends and family all know and cater to Herbst’s fear of being alone.
“Without my friends my world would be nothing,” Herbst said.