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I've Been Here Before//October 360th, 2023

The start of autumn, to me, always feels like seeing something in real life that you've seen in a dream.

I remember once, during one of my many, many dreams about trick-or-treating on a day other than October 31st, seeing a house. I think the house, in the dream, was owned by a vampire man with a yard full of bats. Sometime later, I was in another state visiting family, and, because my father was in training for a marathon at the time, he insisted we go for a walk. On that walk that night, I saw a house that greatly resembled the one from my dream. It invoked a similar emotion, and lit up a spark inside of me, of excitement and curiosity. I believe this was the first time I ever experienced that, seeing something from a dream in reality, but it certainly wasn't the last. 

I don't remember all of my dreams, but the ones I do remember tend to stay with me. The imagery, the emotions, the general feeling of it. 

And autumn itself is very similar. 

It's no secret that I think of autumn all year round. I search for signs of it everywhere I go, and sometimes question if it was ever real, if it was ever here at all. I feel it so strongly, and yet it's so fleeting...is it not just like a dream? I hold it so closely, and in such high, ethereal regard, that I sometimes almost forget that it is in fact a real, tangible thing. 

As the temperature drops and the leaves start to turn, and Halloween and pumpkins finally enter the minds of the laymen, I think to myself, I've seen you before. That aching memory of something that felt too good, too otherworldly, to be true. 

I can explain my dreams in detail to friends and loved ones, but if they all stood before that vampire man's house I found, six hours away from my own home one night, all those years ago, they would not see what I see. Autumn, though, is different. It's as if the world can finally see through the lens of my dreams, and I can somehow forget that it's now okay to be who I am. 

People eye my outfits and comment on how ready I am for Halloween, without any bite in their voices. The stores fill with decor again, and the houses decorate, and the strange familiarity of it floods me all at once. I've seen it before. I've been here before. But it feels so long ago, far off in some magical otherworldly place, I almost wonder how it possibly could have been real.

My connection with autumn and Halloween has always been one I can't quite explain. Like a dream that escapes in the morning light, with a profound meaning that you can't quite decipher, that no one else would ever be able to understand. It feel so unique to me, for about ten months out of the year, that sometimes, during that period of time known to the layman as "spooky season", it almost surprises me that other people can see it too.

Because if I could have a perfect dream, and bring it to life, it would look just like this beautiful time of year, as Halloween approaches like a ghost on the chilly wind.

Stay spooky, my friends.




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