Leaving the Haunted House

Call me a party pooper.

Halloween is not my favorite. I don't know the last time i really looked forward to Halloween. I know my children love it, so I pretend to. Actually, up until today when one of them heard me tell a friend I don't like Halloween, they all believed I thought it was as fun as they did.

When my due date for my oldest was announced to be November 2, I told my former husband that if the baby was born in Halloween instead, I would change the date on the certificate. I also told him that I would hold the baby in as hard as I could if I was in labor that day just to avoid it.

Fortunately, my oldest son was induced the morning of November 1, and born that evening.  Problem averted.

In 2011, my son was an elephant and his best baby friend a rhinoceros. In 2012, I had a Woody (from Toy Story) toddler, and a baby dragon/dinosaur, and the aforementioned friends was Buzz Light-year. In 2013, we brought Spider-Man and Superman to (the much overrated, in my opinion) Zoo Boo.

In 2014, I had an almost four-year-old, a two-year old, and a six month old.

And we celebrated Halloween by living out a nightmare.  Two weeks prior, on my birthday, we were served a short-notice eviction because my now former-husband had bailed on his wife and children, not paying any bills like he had promised, while he insisted it was okay for me to continue being a stay-at-home-mom.

I have never been angry at our former landlords.  Let me say that outright.  They did what they had to do for the good of their own family, and I've never had any ill thoughts toward them.

But, for me and my children, it was a nightmare.  It was brought on by my own naivety, trust in my husband, and mother-to-three-littles-in-survival-mode blindness, as well as all of the ways my childrens' father abandoned us, lied to us, and screwed us over.

For two weeks, I tried as best as I could to figure out what to do and where to go.  He wasn't worried at all, couldn't be bothered or concerned to help us.  It was awful.  For two weeks, I tried to keep the children's heads above water, the children fed and clothed and healthy, and start boxing up, and sorting out the pieces of our broken lives, dividing things between their dad and I, and trying to stay breathing while I felt like the world was closing in on us.

Halloween came, and it was our last day in the house.  The house that I thought we would spend years in, raising our family, happy, together.  But instead, it was dreary and cold, and while I was surrounded by a handful of caring friends and family who were helping us pack up, move into a storage shed that some friends gifted us, and into our other friend's small apartment so we had a roof over our heads while I found a job... I felt abandoned, alone, and haunted.  

I felt haunted in my own house.  Haunted by the promises, haunted by the joy, haunted by the love, haunted by the memories, haunted by the vision of the life I had for all of us... watching it silently play in my mind as I walked around the house like a zombie trying not to feel so that I wouldn't cry.  I was being assaulted by the betrayal, the lies, the letdown, the heartbreak, the manipulation, the confusion, the worry, the wonder, the... everything.  

And he was there, haunting me too.

He too was walking around, room to room, putting things in random places, barely making eye contact, not really saying a word, pretending I didn't exist.  We all walked on glass and eggshells as we moved along, trying to figure out what in the world was going on.

And then, just like that, we left.  I had all I needed and did all that I could before I couldn't do anything else anymore.

We walked out of that haunted house for the very last time.  My friend and I, wanting to let the children still celebrate and have some Halloween "fun" amidst all of their own confusion, went to the mall. That year, the boys wore those "skeleton" t-shirts as their costumes, because I just didn't care.  We didn't have the energy or the desire to really dress up, so that was that.  Norah wore a similar pajama.  Truth be told, then and to this day, I despise those shirts and dresses and pajamas that make it look like you're a walking x-ray.  I don't think I'll ever be on board and I still can't stand seeing them to this day, partially because of the trauma of the year my children walked around wearing on their clothing how I was feeling inside my soul.  

On Halloween 2014, we left that haunted house and headed for the mall

.  But the haunting remained.  For four years.

Since then, we've made new traditions for Halloween that have helped to veil the haunting.  Three years in a row, we went to our church trunk or treat (but unfortunately, it is not occurring this year) with our new, adopted and beloved church family, as well as the children's aunt and uncle here in town.  Then we go to their aunt and uncle's house, trick-or-treat the neighborhood a bit, before staying at their house a while to celebrate Spencer's birthday a few hours early.  This year, we will still be doing most of that, with a Storm Trooper, a Ninja Turtle, and a pretty purple butterfly.

Four years from this Wednesday will be the Halloween we left the graveyard of our life as we knew it behind.  I didn't even realize that it was still haunting me at all, until this evening, when talking with my sister-in-law about how fortunate we are that we have these new traditions that we all love and can look forward to.

That's when I realized how much I dislike Halloween, and what the deeper, hidden reasons behind that are.  It's not just that I personally don't like dressing up, going to strangers' homes, getting random candy (that my children rarely eat all of because I hide it and then throw it away around Easter), and all that. 

Yes, it's that.

But it's also that it's just another milestone, one that brings me back to walking out of that home, that house, the one I walked out of while being haunted by everything I thought my life had been, the confusion surrounding what was real and what was not real, feeling like I had lost my mind, and feeling my heavy heart smashed into the wooden floor while the air was being sucked out of my lungs.

It brings me back to being terrified, but having to remain calm.  Saying goodbye, and trying never to look back.

This year, I've leaving the haunted house.  Tonight, when I go to bed, I'm praying to break off the lingering trauma and the haunting that's still in my heart, surrounding that night four years ago.

This Halloween, I pray that when I lay my head down in my bed at night, I won't see the walls of the other house in my mind at all.

However, don't let me fool you.  More memories and thoughts of that house and our lives there are good.  They're joy-filled, beautiful memories of our family growing.  I can picture things like a movie in my mind, so many wonderful things, hilarious things, as well as the terrifying things toward the end.  The house itself isn't all bad, and certainly not an entirely negative memory.

But on Halloween, yes, yes it was a terrifying, haunted place.

But on Halloween, it will not be that way anymore.