Halloween
is my birthday. I love it so much that I embrace the entire month of October as
my Birthday Month. It’s just who I am.
As a
child, I loved that my special day
was a special day for what seemed like the whole world. I hated that it didn’t
afford me the special powers required to turn my brother into a toad. Not that I
didn’t try. I tried a lot!
As I got
older, I loved the Halloween specials on TV. I still watch It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown every year. I loved going to
the stores and seeing the new costumes each year. The limited edition spooky
packaging on everyday products that convinced me that they would taste sooo
much better than the same items (in the boring, normal packaging) already at
home that I refused to eat because I didn’t like them.
I loved
dressing up for Trick or Treat and Halloween parties at school. I always felt
so special because it was like the whole country was dressing up to celebrate
my birthday. Beggar’s Night was my favorite. I dressed up and went out for
Trick or Treat until I was 18. When the adults would say I was too old, I’d
say, “I know! But it’s my birthday, so I’m allowed.” And to their credit, everyone
said “Happy Birthday!” and gave me candy.
I still
love candy, but now that I’m an “adult,” I just go to the store and buy it
whenever I want. It’s not quite as fun, but that’s ok. Now, I hand out candy on Beggar’s Night. I love
to see the littlest kids all dressed up and so shy. I love that teenagers pretend they don’t want
to go out, but everyone knows they really do. I love that grown men and women
dress up, come to my porch and proceed to tell me that not only do they have
the kid with them, a baby down on the sidewalk, but also twins at home that are
only two weeks old so can they please have some extra candy for them? I have two Trick or Treating rules, you have
to be in costume and you have to say “Trick or Treat” otherwise you can go to
Kroger and pay for your candy like everyone else.
The ironic
thing about my birthday being on the spookiest night of the year is the fact
that I’m a huge chicken. I don’t like horror movies. I don’t read scary books
anymore. I’m afraid of dolls, clowns, the dark, under my bed, the closet, the
basement, the attic, goats, antique baby carriages, ghosts, and the devil. Ok,
that’s not completely true. I’m not afraid of ghosts because I don’t believe
they exist, at least not in the traditional Great-Uncle-Maxwell-has-unfinished-business-so-he’s-slamming-doors-and-cutting-the-lights
kind of ghosts. I don’t believe in witches (Wiccans don’t be offended please,
you know what I mean) I don’t think there are aliens that pretty much only
appear on farms and in trailer parks, and don’t believe in bad luck. What I do
believe in…vampires.
Not the
traditional Count Dracula or Nosferatu. Not the “I vant to suck your blood”,
undead, allergic to sunlight, can’t cross running water, turn-into-a-bat, stake
through the heart vampire. I believe in spiritual vampires. These are the people
that drain the joy from our lives like it’s their job. These are people that
are so unhappy with their own lives they simply cannot stand for someone else
to be happy, even if it is their birthday month. These people are wrapped up in
their own misery and to be near them is to put yourself into the gravitational pull
of their misery.
Knowing
and identifying the emotional vampires in my life is relatively easy. These are
the people that make me sleepy when I talk to them. They make me tired just to
be around. My patience wears thin and I want to run away, but I’m helpless to
move. I’m caught. I’m trapped in the mire of negativity and joylessness. My fear
is that I’ll become one of them. If you’ve ever been around one, you know how
easy it is to see life through those muck-colored glasses; to see the world as
ugly and hateful and sad; to commiserate and even encourage the vampiric
behavior; and then prey on other unsuspecting victims.
Today, I
made a choice. Not a good one, but I allowed it to happen, so for today I will
deal with it, and tomorrow let it go. I allowed a vampire to cast a pall on my
birthday month. To rob my joy for the day. I’ve been so proud of myself lately,
I’ve been more up than down, more happy than sad. I’ve embraced and accepted joy
that I normally would have pushed away. I’m learning to keep the joy for
myself. This might sound selfish, but if you’ve ever had joy, you know that if
you keep it, it just flows back out of you so that someone else can have it too.
So, I’ve
been basking in the light of joy, and I left it out in the open too long and I allowed
a vampire to take it. Honestly, it’s not the vampire’s fault, it was mine. I should
have guarded it more closely. I should have left it in the van for just a
little while. Locked it in my heart and jealously guarded it until I was out of
the vampire’s reach, but I foolishly thought maybe the vampire would want some
of what I had. That’s the thing about vampires though, they do want what you
have, but only so that they can destroy it so that no one else can have it and
you can’t have it back. They don’t want joy in their lives because they don’t
understand that it’s not a commodity to be owned, but a gift to be shared. I
let this vampire come and steal the joy of my birthday month. I keep thinking
about what perfect birthday month it’s been. I went out with some of my
favorite people on Earth, we had a great time! I’ve been writing, my job is
going well, my home life is awesome, I have the greatest kid on the planet and
yet this stupid vampire took my joy and smashed it on the ground, and all I can
do is think that maybe, just maybe, I’m more vampire than I thought. Maybe I
attract the vampires because I am one.
Tomorrow
is my birthday. I have decided that if I am a vampire, tomorrow I will be
reborn into something new. I will no longer allow the vampires in my life to
control my joy. They will not pull me into their orbit; they will not steal from
me and crush what is mine. I will not lose what I have because I allowed a
vampire to have it.
