October is my favourite month and I impatiently wait for it every year. The weather is wonderful, it’s beautiful, it smells fantastic. It feels like things are getting quieter, slowing down. The days are cool and it gets dark early now. It’s also Halloweentime, which has always been one of my favourite holidays.
I always forget how difficult it is to get through October. I wait for it all year and the things I’m waiting for always happen, but then a bunch of other stuff that I don’t remember happens, too.
- Grief and guilt over a loss that somehow feels like it happened both yesterday and a hundred years ago.
- The anxiety of things that haven’t happened in a long time, but I can still feel them waiting for me just out of sight.
- I guess I’m old now, and Halloween just isn’t what I want it to be anymore. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, it’s just not the same and I miss how it was.
It’s a nostalgic time, and also sad, and thrilling, and soothing. It’s beautiful and tragic and electric. It fills me with so many different things all at once and I often find myself getting lost. It’s not usually by accident, either. It’s like I’m lost in a great big maze with emergency exits to leave any time, but I choose to stay. It isn’t always comfortable, but there’s something satisfying about being in there for a while, seeing and feeling and remembering everything there is to see and feel and remember.
October has more than its fair share of my favourite days, and I don’t think those would stay if I went out of my way to avoid the rest of it, so I keep it all close.
I do this every year: Remember the struggle, consider it, decide it’s worth it, face it, realize it’s definitely worth it, then forget the struggle when it’s done. My birthday is in less than a week, and I’ll have mostly forgotten by then.
It’s November now, so I’ll start posting more again soon.
Bracken & Bell 
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