These last few autumns haven’t been ideal for me.
Autumn is actually my favorite season of the year, in case anyone didn’t know. I’ve never been big on the solstice seasons. Winter is way too cold and full of hassles (plus I’m a New Englander, so… Storms!) and drags once you get to February-March. Summer? Starts out fine, but gets way too hot, way too muggy, and despite all the fun activities and no classes, it’s just not my favorite. Spring is a great even mix, temperature-wise, but my allergies go haywire! Fall’s just about right, especially once we get to my birth month: October!
I think I determined after 2004 that fall is my jam. Fall 2004, despite a lot of issues going on at home and at school, was a great time for me. I didn’t give two darns about the stuff that does not matter in the long run, and I was indulging on all the stuff I loved at the time, on top of having major creative rushes. I did the same in fall 2005, which too had its fair share of downsides. Once I got into high school in 2006, things changed. Life changed. The world as it knew it became different, sometimes ugly and uncertain. I had trouble truly enjoying fall 2006, fall 2007 was a complete bust as I had fallen into a lengthy depression… Then it all got back on track in the late summer of 2008, for my experience, battle scars, and new discoveries helped me form a better outlook on life. In a sense, at age 15-going-on-16, I was now truly maturing. I was always one step behind in that department anyways, might still be. I don’t know!
And yet, in the recent years, falls have been rather rough. Of course, I’m still in college and I’m also working a part-time job at my local cinema. A lot has changed since 2015, when I first got said job. Until then, I was working at home for my family business. Halloween is kind of a big deal for me, because I love the aesthetics, the weather and early nights perfectly complement the imagery, and I just love the general mood. I didn’t get that in 2015: My job had initially ramped up my anxiety and I wasn’t able to really enjoy my birthday, nothing happened Halloween night, I was just home all by myself and worrying about my shift the next morning. It was just not a good time in general, though things picked up considerably by Thanksgiving.
Last year… Well, some good, some not-so-good. I attempted Inktober last year for the very first time, and got about 5-6 drawings done. We had a little dinner for Halloween and some folks over, just a little together. My birthday mostly went well, too. By October 2016, I was much more comfortable with my job, dealing with the public, and having to balance a lot of things between that place and college. Fall 2016 was a solid semester overall, as I had taken a pretty cool Italian class, a great graphic design course that got me confident, and an online music class that was a breeze. I made a Halloween-themed YouTube video. I even got to go to Walt Disney World for the second time that year! I got to do a lot of cool local Halloween events, but still… Halloween felt a little lacking for some reason.
This year, it did as well, for this current semester has been rough. It’s a climactic one, for sure, as the prize is near. Lots has been going on at home, too. I usually take three classes, it’s just my kind of workload… But this semester I, a commuter, took on four. I had a nervous breakdown over one of these four classes, another one has me very stressed, and I’m trying to stay on top of the other two. Additions are being made to my house, which removes some of the peace of the house, along with very nasty family drama that’s spiraling elsewhere. (Thankfully the folks in my house are trying to keep that from bleeding in.) Deadlines everywhere, stuff to do, lots of disappointment. I barely did the Halloween events I did last year, wasn’t really feeling most of the month, but I did have a nice dinner on Halloween night…
What’s missing? Why no constant movie-watchings? This year, I checked out two horror films I wish to never see again: The Babadook and 1922. Don’t get me wrong, these were both very well-made, effective films… But they’re just not for me. Maybe I’m a softie, but what happened in those films got my anxiety going something fierce. Yet I want to watch more horror films and see what I haven’t seen in that genre… and believe me, there’s a lot and I am ashamed of that!
Not just horror movies, though. Why didn’t I watch the Halloween-y cartoons of the Golden Age that much? Why no episodes of shows? Or anything else remotely Halloween-esque? Just not in the mood, I guess… When I’m not in the mood for something, I can’t fully enjoy it, and that frustrates me. I wish just watching it automatically put me in the mood…
The Halloween aesthetic, and most spooky and weirdo things, are my jam. Any day, any time.
Maybe around, say, February, I’ll randomly be in the mood for ghouls and goblins and freaks… But that’s well past Halloween! Or maybe I’ll feel that way again in July. For me, it can’t be a specific time… It has to be when *I* want to enjoy those things. Maybe in any given October, my mind will be elsewhere. I’m not mentally prepared for these kinds of things, and then when I try to get into them at the “required” time, I feel like I’m forcing myself and then it just doesn’t feel the same. So that means, maybe in April, I’ll have the urge to watch a Halloween-esque cartoon and really feel the mood of it… Well after autumn! Then I feel strange for doing so, as if I’m trying to get a sip of the punch 5 hours after the party ended.
But I want to have that mood whenever Halloween comes about, semester or no semester. Regardless of my public-working job, I should feel in the spirit. A lot of people I know on Twitter already got in the spirit once autumn began. Some people often quipped “Oh stop with the pumpkins, it’s not even October!” Well, I guess some of us really feel the mood that early on and want to pounce on that, live it up till it goes away and then something else gets on your mind in the middle of October… Because that may just happen.
The other problem is that, as an adult, you’re more aware of the world around you and soon the ghoulish fun takes a backseat to truly scary stuff. You hear of attacks, political turmoil, now several of your favorite actors and maybe even filmmakers are being exposed as predators. Bad news is all around, and you certainly hear about that nonstop on social media as well. Of course, I don’t want to forsake responsibility and the understanding of world problems for fun. I want to balance that, instead of being “mentally 8 years old” and being oblivious to the world around me. I don’t want to “be a kid” again. That’s a statement that always annoys me to no end – having fun or engaging in something that isn’t “workworkwork” for an hour or so does not mean you stopped being an adult. You’re an adult having fun! I know, novel concept! Often used by people when watching family-friendly animated movies: “I’m a kid again!” Not me, I’m just enjoying a film made in the medium that I love. Same applies to when I’m having fun outside of movie-watching.
I want to have fun and be in the spirit every Halloween. Not that being 6 or 7 or 8 was the reason why Halloween was so great in the past… I should be able to make it fun and be “in spirit” at age 25, despite anxiety, despite responsibilities, despite everything else. Stuff I didn’t have to deal with as a kid, why can’t I deal with the bad stuff and make room for the good? Maybe next October, I don’t want to worry about certain things to the point where it all rains on my parade.
However, in the end, for me it’s all about being in the mood. Can I be in the mood every October?
