The Dichotomy//October 195th, 2025

It was the one gloomy day we really had all October. It had been unseasonably warm. So sunny. The atmosphere of Halloween, of 'spooky season', if you will, was nearly lost.

But that day was different. Good things loomed on the horizon for me. I was about to go off in celebration of my favorite holiday, in my favorite place. If I was lucky, which I was, I might complete the final leg of a particular piece of my healing journey on that trip. I don't know that I've ever been more excited.

I called my mother that morning, as I took a walk around the block. Her birthday was the next day. We talked about everything, but mostly how happy I was.

It felt like magic.

I came home and sat out in the yard, looking around as I always do, taking in one last glimpse of my home in October. It's always so strange to look at anything, any place, and think, 'Next time I'm here, it won't be October anymore.'

I may as well say:

Next time I'm here's I won't be me anymore.

The gloom was so spectacular to me, and I knew it wouldn't last. So in that moment, I snapped a picture. A portrait of October, standing on the precipice of Halloween. A celebration to come, a celebration to end, and journey to circle all around again next year.

I've looked at that picture so many times, to remind myself that I didn't dream it.

And now it's April on the Gregorian calendar. Yet it feels a little bit like that day. Not cold, not hot. Sometimes early spring feels like a second fall; a tease of sorts. It's back again, but not. It feels like it's here, but still so far away. An entire summer standing between me and that feeling. That magic.

I sit in that same spot tonight. I look up at the pink leaves and I envision them crumbling before me. Only blooming and I wait for their demise.

The spring colors are so pretty; they remind me of being a child, hunting for eggs left behind by a magical bunny, and yet I cry. Cry for what was, and what will be again, and the journey in between.

I will sit out here again on an October day, hopefully as jubilant and hopeful as I was last year.

But for now I watch the strange pastels form, feeling like that rotted pumpkin sitting among Christmas lights on a porch.

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How The Halloween Community Saved My Life//October 226th, 2024

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 con...

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