Skip to main content

Autumn Children In Springtime//October 211th, 2025

 Many years ago, there was no 'Halloween Community', as we now know it. 

There were only us, the children drifting like dry, wayward leaves in a cool breeze, never quite knowing where to land.

We were the children whose friends looked at them strangely when we said our favorite holiday wasn't Christmas. We were the children who were called 'creepy' because we preferred ghost stories to fairy tales. If you were one of these children, one of us, you know.

Me, personally? I was the little girl who cried when Halloween ended and never brightened at the mention of Christmas on the horizon. I was the little girl who pitched the idea of turning the Jack o' Lanterns around, hiding their scary faces, so that they could linger through Thanksgiving. I was the little girl who tried to start a leaf collection and then was devastated when they all turned brown. 

I was the little girl who just wanted Halloween to stay.

I was also the little girl who grew into perhaps a more awkward version of myself as a teenager. I didn't fit in anywhere, with anyone, or so it seemed, and my only solace was waiting for Halloween. It came, and it went. But I never stopped dreaming of it. 

And so I was the girl who sat on her bedroom floor with a free little calendar I'd gotten from Hallmark at New Year's time, constantly counting. Math was my worst subject, but for Halloween, I was diligent. 

I was the girl who sat and calculated the halfway point to Halloween at fourteen years old. 

'Halfway point between April 30th and May 1st', I wrote on both months of my little calendar, silently wishing April 31st were a thing, as it would make it so much easier. 

It doesn't matter now, though. April 30th, May 1st...I see it celebrated on both days, or sometimes the entire week. Last year, even extended to May 2nd as it was a leap year. 

I'm just happy to see it celebrated. 

Those little wayward leaves, lost within the world that wasn't autumn, have come together to form the most beautiful tree. 

And under those branches, Halloween lives eternally.



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Saw The Great Pumpkin Out For A Stroll//October 233rd, 2025

  The most amazing thing happened to me, on a Saturday afternoon.  The date was August 30th, just two days before Labor Day; the start of September, and, thankfully, the unofficial (but official, in my book) end of summer.  I wound up at a local toy shop, coming away with some tiny plushies. (Two of them Christmas themed, ironically, as I am working toward finding the magic in all things once more .) As I exited the store, something caught my eye beyond the fence leading to the next residential street.  A very tall pumpkin man seemed to be walking toward a house. My mind snapped back to when I was six years old, the very first time the Great Pumpkin came to visit me. How I'd heard him in the night, a candle rattling around in his head as he did his work, ensuring the happiest of Halloweens for the truest of believers. How special it felt to know I was one of his Chosen.  I'd always hoped to thank him one day. I quietly tiptoed around the fence, out into the narr...
Post a Comment
Read more

I'm Not So Sure About This Social Media Thing//October 94th, 2026

 I started this blog six years ago on New Year's Day. I had been through some major life changes in 2018/2019, and really found myself along the way. I felt as though I really had cemented a place for myself within the Halloween community on social media, and often, when I would caption my posts on Instagram with snippets of memories, or a specific feeling that maybe not many others could understand, I would get comments and messages from new friends and followers, complimenting the way I wrote, sometimes even asking for more, and so, the idea to start a blog again was born, and, silly as it may sound, I am very proud that I've managed to stick with it as long as I have. Long work hours, personal problems, bouts of anxiety and depression....none of that has ever fully stopped me from coming back and doing what I love.  But, lately, I have been feeling a little off about social media in general, and that's something I really would like to talk about, as I feel it taking a to...
2 comments
Read more

Welcome Back//October 358th, 2025

  I went for my first walk in ages tonight.  The last real walk I remember going on, was a December morning, when Halloween was being discarded.  I remember seeing pumpkins by garbage cans, empty spaces where ghosts once flew.  The ghosts of ghosts, you might say.  The world hasn't looked the same, since then. But now, now it is autumn. It is that magical time when September shifts into almost-October; goes from being my birthday month to almost-Halloween.  I walk tonight, and I see the beginnings.  Not everyone has decorated yet, but it is starting. The world is beginning to look like a place I recognize once more, and old friends are appearing on lawns or in doorways, or peering down at me from windows.   I'm not sure if I'm waking up from a dream, or have fallen back to sleep.  But whatever it is, it feels good. The best I have felt in a long time. "Welcome back," I say to the decorations, and to autumn and Halloween, and to myself. "It fe...
Post a Comment
Read more