Katie Pumpkinhead’s Pumpkin Patch

 November 1st used to be my least favorite day of the year. It's painful, still, but in a different way than it used to be. It is both a funeral and a celebration of life. A day of reflection, and some kind of triumph, to see myself and the remaining Halloween decorations still standing. It's difficult, but a strange kind of difficult. I'm coming to realize that the actual hardest day of the year for me, might in fact be the day after Thanksgiving. I believe I have said this over the course of multiple years: Thanksgiving is the final breath of autumn. I held onto it in childhood, despite my dislike of it then, because the pumpkins and scarecrows, and sometimes, still, the ghosts and bats and spiders and whatever else, would often hold on through then. Autumn lingered, though grayer and more bitter, more brittle, but it was still there, through Thanksgiving Day. The world has evolved in the strangest of ways...I have watched Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas compete wi...

Something I find interesting, as we head into the "holiday" season, is how society in general tends to view Valentine's Day as some sort of manufactured obligation. All through January and early February, you just hear constantly about how the things meant to be expressed on February 14th, should be expressed freely any other day of the year. And yes, despite the fact that Valentine's Day is and always has been my second favorite holiday, it's a valid point. No calendar date should dictate when we show love and appreciation to anyone in our lives. It should just simply be done.  Something I've come to notice, though, probably heavily due to working in retail as long as I have, is that, despite their insistence on celebrating, people treat the holidays like some sort of awful obligation. This time of year brings out the worst in people rather than the best. And it just leaves me wondering, why do it, then? I do understand the importance of tradition, to an exte...

 It's been two weeks now since Halloween.  This year, I was able to hold onto things a little more than usual, with continued events and multiple trips to The Great Jack O'Lantern Blaze, but it's finally hitting me now that the official time of Halloween is, in fact, over. It's funny, because when I say this on social media, I suddenly get flooded with people telling me it's not really over, or that it's always in my heart. (Or my least favorite, trying to push me into the, spooky or otherwise, Christmas spirit. Please read  this post  before you attempt to go down that road.)  The strange thing is, I know these things. I very obviously know how to hold onto Halloween despite calendar dates.When it comes to my free time, I essentially live completely outside the confines of a calendar. And yet, I can't help but feel that heaviness now, two weeks later, as Halloween gets put away and forgotten once again by the outside world.  What does it mean when I say I ...

 I went for a walk this afternoon. I suppose I may be somewhat known for my "Post-Halloween Depression Walks", during which I walk around the neighborhood, obviously after Halloween has passed, and basically search for signs of life. Decorations still on display, waiting for be noticed, accepted, in this world where they are suddenly no longer welcome after a short month of being revered. Today I found a few. Some I've admired since October began, still going strong. Some new ones that seem to have appeared on the night of Halloween, just visiting for a moment. But of course I also found empty spaces, voids where Halloween once stood.  And at one house, I saw an open storage shed, full of all of the decorations that had been on display, proudly lit, the last time I passed. I think, for some reason, this one hurt most of all. Perhaps, as a child, I took my holiday decorating and celebration cues from Christmas. Christmas, on some level, is celebrated for at least the entir...

 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...