In 2018, I thought I was dying.
It wasn't a health scare, at least not a physical one.
I was losing myself.
2018 was a truly transitional time for me. At the time, I was living with my parents, along with my boyfriend at the time, who I'd been with for over a decade. They say you never know what the next day is going to bring, and April 2018 was proof of that.
Around the middle of the month, I made the decision to end my relationship, for several reasons, one being complicated feelings I had for someone else. I was in the process of figuring all of that out, when, not more than a week later, my father abruptly decided it was time to retire, put the house up for sale, and move to Florida.
I don't do well with change on a good day. But dealing with all of this at once was rough. I was facing a breakup, a possible new relationship, and suddenly potential homelessness, all at once. (If you know me at all, you'll understand that moving to Florida was never a considerable option for me.) There was a lot to figure out, and, needless to say, my hobbies and interests fell by the wayside.
If you knew me before 2018, you'll know that my bedroom back then was a haven of perpetual Halloween. Oddly enough, I'd only really started leaving Halloween decor up all year round, around 2011. Prior to that, I believe I was in that (still very valid) camp of feeling as though the magic might die if I tried to hold too tight to it through the rest of the year. But, once I began, I became truly committed, dedicated, to surrounding myself with as much Halloween as humanly possible, at all times, curating a collection to spark the emotions in me that I dreamed about and longed for throughout the eleven months of the year that weren't October. It became, in a way, my life's work. My legacy. Maybe it sounds strange to say, but Halloween may be the only thing in my life that I've ever truly cared about, enough to put so much time and effort and money into it. There's never been anything else that's made me feel anything even close to what Halloween does.
Anyway, here are some pictures from my room back then, over the course of time.
Even the outside of my door was decorated, as I did my best to make it reminiscent of a front porch on Halloween night.
Needless to say, when my parents announced this move, all of this had to be disassembled and packed away.
Some footage from those days:
This was a truly heartbreaking time for me, as it truly felt like every bit of myself was being stripped away. Halloween has always been my salvation in life, and now I didn't even have that. My room was torn apart and repainted, and I actually wound up moving into a different room in the house until it sold, with no decorations, just a bed and some of my clothes, and a small handful of plushies who kept me sane at the time.
I truly didn't know who I was anymore, or what was going to happen to me. I didn't think, at the time, that I could ever truly be who I had been again. I even found myself donating a lot of my stuff, solely to get some weight off of my shoulders, but most of it went into a storage unit. On May 22nd, I posted on social media about it.
I believed I was dead, or at least dying. "Katie Pumpkinhead" seemed, at the time, like a part of myself I'd never be able to tap into again. There was so much to figure out. So many things that on the surface were more "important" than Halloween, or should have been, at the time.
May-July of 2018 was one of the roughest times of my life. If there was ever a point I could say I hit an absolute low, that was definitely it. You can read a little more about that in
this post if you so desire. But, by September, I'd managed to build a new support system, found myself in a new relationship, and was able to make living arrangements. I moved toward the end of the month, and while it was a rough adjustment, it was good to not have to worry about it anymore, and also start working on healing past traumas, now that I was out of certain situations. It wasn't always easy, but I was always grateful.
However, I was extremely depressed. I didn't bring much with me when I moved, as I wasn't sure what I even wanted with me at that point, as I really didn't even know who I was anymore. I posted on social media very sparingly, as I didn't know what to say or what people would even expect from me, at that point.
That Halloween, though, I experienced The Great Jack O'Lantern Blaze for the first time (as well as my first ride through Sleepy Hollow)! It was sort of a last-minute decision to go, and I'm still surprised we even got tickets that late in the game, but to say it was one of the best games experiences of my life, would be the ultimate understatement.
I've long been known for getting emotional about Halloween, but this year it was as if everything that I'd held inside me since April came pouring out. I don't think I've ever felt the way I did on that Halloween before, and I doubt I ever will again.
This is one of my favorite pictures ever of myself, because it's just so raw and real. So me .
It was hard to return to my still-very-new reality after that night, and I wasn't sure what to do with the fact that, once again, Halloween managed to heal me, but once again, it had to end. I suddenly felt like a teenager again, back before I kept my decorations up year-round. The odd girl out, whose time had just passed, and wouldn't be coming around again for another year. I think 2018's post-Halloween depression was my most intense of all. It was heavier, deeper, more palpable.
I basically lived off of memories of that Halloween night until the following summer.
It was June 28th of 2019, when I finally brought some things out of storage, and began to slowly piece myself back together.
As July and August approached, I started actually shopping again, and posting hauls online, on Instagram and Facebook. I started to realize how much fun I was having, and finally, finally, the heaviness and pain I'd been feeling since April 2017 started to slowly subside.
I also started to collect things from online merchants again around this time, particularly handmade Halloween dolls.
And, on October 19th, 2019, one of those dolls finally helped me put the final pieces back together, and become myself, once again.
Abe, made by
The Beast Peddler, inspired me to do a little photoshoot with him, the way I used to with my dolls back on LiveJournal (Journaling sites/blogging have always been my preferred form of social media...I like the freedom of being able to write as much as I need to.) And it made me
so happy to do it. Something clicked in my brain and I realized,
this is what I wanted to be doing. I could use Instagram as a way to share my photography, and my passion for Halloween, two things that had been buried so deep within me for so long. As you can see in the post I made above, I turned that photoshoot into the beginning of a "Thirteen Days Of Halloween" challenge, posted daily as I counted down to Halloween, and through my first real celebration in the town of Sleepy Hollow,
And, this time, when Halloween was over, I decided to just continue to do what I'd always done best: Carry on like it was still October. I continued to shop, curating a new collection and honing in my personal decor aesthetic. I continued to take atmospheric photos, challenging myself depending on what season it actually was. I began to share my stories and memories more.
And the rest, I suppose, is history.
Through sharing my photography, and then my writing once I started this blog in 2020, after several people told me they enjoyed how I wrote and would like to read more, I found myself becoming part of a community that I only ever could have dreamed of, when I was younger. Suddenly there were tens, then twenties, then hundreds, then thousands, of people responding to my love for Halloween, and sharing their own love for Halloween with me. Katie Pumpkinhead did not, in fact, die, on May 22nd, 2018. She simply went into a chrysalis for a bit, and emerged stronger, and spookier, than ever, into a world where she was finally appreciated, finally understood.
If you had told me, that day, as I stood forlornly looking into that storage unit, at everything I loved reduced to piles and bins and garbage bags, that I would one day find myself again, and find an actual community where I fit in, over time building my following to over ten thousand people, I never would have believed it. But it happened. It's real.
Why am I talking about this now? Because it's May, and May 2018 still haunts me. I remember making those posts, as it felt like my life was never going to improve, and when I look at how far I've come between then and now, I can't help but be proud. And I have to thank all of the people who encouraged me, this entire community of Halloween that feels like an absolute dream come true to me. Sure, no community/fandom is perfect, and the summer lovers that infiltrate and try to burst our bubbles are a perpetual annoyance, but I wouldn't trade the Halloween community for anything. The little girl who would go back to school sad on November 1st, and not immediately cheer up at the mention of Christmas, finally feels seen. And the opportunity to bring to joy to others who need that shot of spookiness all year round is the best thing I could ever have possibly dreamed of. I know not everyone who follows me reads this blog (Hell, not even half of the people who follow me on Instagram even see my posts, the way the algorithm has gotten!), but if you are reading this, I just want to say thank you, for having me here and letting my spooky visions and memories and passions be a part of your life. I hope my pictures, my writing, whatever of mine you choose to consume, lights up a part of your heart that only we, the true lovers of Halloween, know exists.
I can't wait to see what this community does next. But whatever it is, I know it can never be more perfect than the fact that it truly saved my life.
Stay spooky, my friends
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