You’ve Been Too Much, Summer: Halloween, Save Us All

I think the last time I enjoyed summer was back when I was a kid. Back then, it was all waterparks and swimming pools and fireworks and staying over at friends’ houses and running around in the dark of our neighborhoods playing Ghosts in the Graveyard, Witches Come Out Tonight and other shocking children’s games.

Witches Come out tonight is essentially the same thing as Ghosts in the Graveyard… or at least that’s what we thought. In both games, one of you hides and the rest of you go looking for them.

Except, when the person is found, they are also suddenly “it” and so they then start to scream and chase the rest of you until you reach whatever has been designated the safe spot.

If you don’t make it which means that they got you… you’re now the witch/ghost.

So, when playing this game, my beloved childhood friends and I would stagger out into the darkness of our neighborhood and try to super halfheartedly find our hiding friend… really hoping that we didn’t find them… because they’re no longer our friend.

No, Kassi is now a ghost/witch.

Such a fun game: “Let’s torture each other.”

Not much changes as you get older but the rules become much more unclear and there are few to no safe spaces.

And summers now are defined by car accidents, dirt bike gangs, fireworks being 24/7, violence, sirens, screaming, shouting, shootings, drunken belligerence.

Or they don’t matter because you’re working so much you find you somehow miss seasons entirely and the only way you eventually notice summer is gone is because you suddenly realize it’s a lot more quiet.

On my visits to CBRFs and AFHs and SNFs, I find myself talking about how we’ve all missed summer this year and also who cares because autumn is way better.

Though one AFH owner shared how she was shocked that there were ceramic Jack O Lanterns at the grocery store check-out.

“It’s August, ” she remarked.

I hadn’t noticed the Halloween influx because I don’t go to grocery stores anymore as I don’t have time to eat.

Still… I don’t mind if Halloween is starting a little earlier this year. We need a little Halloween. We’re already all scared out of our minds about different things… Halloween helps us to at least get on the same page in regard to What We’re Scared of Right Now.

Halloween is coming! The dog we rescued is starting to eat more regularly and is now starting to look like a werewolf.

This helps me to continue to provide crisis trauma recovery care to this poor little devastated creature.

Everyone is getting in the mood.

I don’t know how long I’ll be able to sustain because – honestly? – too much has happened recently and also in general. If this feeling or lack thereof doesn’t shift, I’m going to have to make a BIG change.

But I’m not leaving this house or Milwaukee+ until I spend at least one Halloween here.

I mean, there is a funeral home across the street which has been purchased by an architect kid who has turned it into his home.

And I heard he throws Halloween parties there.

Crazy.

So… something to look forward to!

And we have to have things to look forward to or else we may lose sight of the point of looking.

Do not despair, I tell my devastated, anorexic dog.

Halloween is coming.

I saw Ezra Furman recently which was a very pleasant surprise and which was soon annoyingly ruined because a man started screaming at me for no reason and also so suddenly and so close to my face I felt the spit he was spewing and by doing so he irritatingly pushed me back into a buried cemetery of trauma.

Add it to the pile.

In the meantime, I’ve got so much paperwork to complete I don’t have the cognitive space to think which works out nicely for the week but it means that the weekends are especially lonely and tough.

SO a big change is needed but… Halloween comes and this year can scuttle by as quickly as it may.

🖤