Vampires

                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.