Dear November 1st//October 32nd, 2021

Dear November 1st (and I use the term ‘dear’ as a loose formality),

I have disliked you for as long as I can remember.

You come along every year, obliterate everything that holds meaning for me, and act like it’s no big deal.

You invalidate my feelings, implying that since you are now present, it’s time to just move on and forget about October and Halloween. Maybe even move onto Christmas, which is a true sacrilege as far as I’m concerned. But still you force your way in, demanding attention, and telling me I’m wrong.

There was a girl who used to bully me in school, every day from the time we met in third grade until we graduated. When she came around, any shred of acceptance I felt from my peers immediately faded, because her presence made me an outcast. You remind me of her sometimes. Just as I’m starting to settle into my surroundings, as someone compliments my outfit or decides to have a conversation with me about my genuine interests, you come along and butt in and suddenly my outfit is weird and my interests are stupid and wrong. The only difference with my schoolyard bully was that sometimes, on some few, glorious days, she would be absent.

I pray for your absence every year. I wish on every star, eyelash, dandelion feather, and whatever else I can find that somehow you won’t come, and the days will just continue to reset back to perpetual October, where I am warm and safe and at home in the world, for once in my life. But you always come back, and every year hits harder than the last. Can’t you see that you’re destroying me? Can’t you tell that I just want to live the life that I live in October, every day, in peace? Is that really so wrong?

It’s not wrong at all though, is it? Who are you to tell me that I shouldn’t be myself? That I shouldn’t live as I want to live when I am hurting no one, except maybe your fragile ego? You are, ultimately, no one. You are a box on a calendar masquerading as a demigod, nothing more than a bully who thinks they know how everyone “should” live, when in reality, you know nothing.

There is one thing I never let sink in as a child, when that schoolyard bully would come around. The adults in my life always tried to teach me to ignore bullies and their mindless games, but I didn’t know how.

I am so much older now, though. I’m no longer that little girl who needs the approval of everyone in her class. I no longer wish to wear a certain shirt or part my hair a certain way so that maybe, just maybe, the bully won’t make fun of me that day. I am a human being, who knows what I like, who knows what makes me happy, and who can make the choice to do what makes me happy even if the bully would tell me it’s wrong.

So I woke up this morning, and though you’d beaten me down quite a bit just by bursting in my life once more, I chose defiance, but also happiness. I dressed in an outfit that, in your mind, would have been better suited to yesterday, but you know what? I looked in the mirror and I liked what I saw. Tomorrow I will go outside and take pictures, just as I have for the entire month of October, and the only thing that will have changed is the date.

No, I don’t like that you’re here. I wish you would just stay away and let the world hold onto its October transformation, but if you must come and charm everyone else, I suppose that’s fine. But you will not bully me into being someone I’m not, ever again. I will wake up every morning, from now until the clock strikes midnight on October 1st once again, and contemplate how to make each day feel like my favorite time of year.

Dear November 1st,

Challenge accepted.

The Long Way Back//October 32nd, 2023

Every year I talk about November 1st...it's such a confusing day. It makes me feel so many emotions all at once. Mournful, depressed, angry...It's like a slap in the face shoving us into a new month, forcing us to forget what came just hours before. Last year, I did have somewhat of an epiphany regarding the month of November as a whole, and while I do my best to keep my own past words in mind, that doesn't make today any easier. Or easy to explain, for that matter. I suppose I should speak from my heart. Today I feel detached from reality, as if I don't really exist. Like there is no longer a place in the world for me. Just yesterday everything I loved made sense, and was loved and revered by everyone else as well. I felt like I fit. But now, today, I see those same things being quickly shoved away. Less than twenty-four hours after trick-or-treating time began, it's all being swept under the rug. The season culminated and the world is no longer a place I recog

The Spooky Community Has No Entrance Fee//October 288th, 2023

Something I’ve been seeing a lot this year around the Halloween community, possibly more than any other year, has been talk of consumerism, how much money spent on Halloween is too much, whether collecting is really that important or if it’s somehow required to truly be a part of the community, etc. I’m in no way trying to copy anyone else who’s already spoken on this subject, but I thought I would chime in and share my thoughts, as it is something I definitely think about. Now, I’ve always been relatively fortunate when it comes to how much money I have to spend on Halloween goodies. As a child, I often received money for my birthday, September 8th, at the height of the shopping season, at least as I knew it back then. No, it wasn’t enough to collect the way I do now, but it was enough to make me happy, and you also could get a lot more for a lot less back then. I didn’t necessarily stop to think about my “hauls”, but I knew even at a young age that there was nothing I’d rather be sp

Here’s Where The Story Ends//October 337th, 2020

Everyone has moments in their life when they feel like giving up. That feeling of “This is never going to happen, so why keep trying?” Sometimes it relates to a thing that would be trivial to anyone else, sometimes it’s about something more life-altering. But, we’ve all been there. I have moments of discouragement with this blog. Times I’ve told myself, “No one cares”, or “No one will read this”, etc., but I continue on, for the joy of it. And sometimes, something amazing happens. If you haven’t read my previous post, Have You Seen This Pumpkin? , I would strongly suggest doing so before continuing on with this story. The short version is, I saw a pumpkin in someone’s window when I was twelve years old, and have spent the last twenty-one years trying to find it for myself. When I published that post, I wasn’t expecting much of a response. I was really just hoping to hear someone say, “Yes, my family had this pumpkin when I was a kid!” Or “I once saw this in a neighbor’s window while

Katie Pumpkinhead’s Pumpkin Patch

Search This Blog