Why Halloween Scares The Sh*t Out of Me (and it's not for that reason!)

What are you grinning at, sunshine?

Well, thank God that's over for another year. Once again the pumpkin carcasses have been extinguished, the kids' costumes lie strewn all over the house have been put away carefully, and it's officially November today. [Um, I did begin writing this post on 1st November, but as you can see from the actual posted date I took rather a long time in finishing. I will get better at this, I promise.] So that must mean that Halloween is once again dead and buried. And I say Hurrah for that. 

Bloody Halloween has been a thorn in my side since September 1st this year so it feels as if it's been a very l-o-n-g time coming. Dude started school last September, therefore this year was his very first experience of long summer holidays. Now, you don't have to be a parent to realise that all the 'Back To School' fodder is stocked in shops across the country precisely the day BEFORE schools break up for the summer hols; by the same token, all the Halloween crap first begins showing its cheap 'n' nasty face during the FINAL week of summer hols. Just to give the kids something else to go barmy about as if they didn't have enough reasons already. So Dude has been literally counting down the days until All Saint's Eve for the past two months. And now I'm done, baby, I'm so over it.

So why am I so down on this particular celebration? Aside from the fact that we have it rammed down our throats for weeks and weeks leading up to the event itself (but then that's true of all modern-day First World "celebrations" so I can't single out Halloween for this reason), our family never really acknowledged it when I was a child. It wasn't a 'thing' yet, wasn't something worth getting hot and bothered about. It was an amusing little anomaly on the Christian calendar that we vaguely knew our American cousins were really nuts over. We were aware of the practise of Trick-or-Treating, but our teachers wagged their fingers and told us to NEVER EVER knock on strangers' doors and accept sweets from them because there might be chopped-up razor blades secreted inside, or poisoned toffee apples a la Snow White. So we didn't 'do' Halloween.

I have also never really liked sweets. I can literally feel the enamel melting from my molars if I succumb to even the smallest little nugget of artificially coloured sugar, yuk! No, I am a chocolate girl through and through. But Halloween is all about the sweets, am I right? Much easier to divvy up a bucket of neon-coloured plastic-coated hard, chewy and crunchy candy to the little monsters who knock on your door than an enormous bar of Dairy Milk, isn't it? Also, sweets have the added bonuses of neither melting nor expiring – have you ever seen a lollipop with a best before date? Me neither. 

My children's Holy Grail.

But the real reason I dread Halloween so much is because I suffer from anxiety, am incredibly introverted and an HSP to boot. (That's an acronym for Highly Sensitive Person for those of you who have never heard of it. Don't worry, neither had I until last year, but that's another story. Do Google it if you're interested, apparently Alanis Morrisette is one too!) So it's not the prospect of any eggs being flung at my house or any spooky, supernatural goings-on that scare me, it's just the fact that there will be an awful lot of PEOPLE coming round and KNOCKING ON THE DOOR. 

Under usual circumstances just having one unsolicited caller is enough to give me the willies and get me so jittery I have to retire to do some deep breathing for a bit after they leave. So when it gets closer to 20 separate visits from all the Trick-or-Treaters who live in our little village, my heart is hammering like a train.

I've always been what one might call "nervy" or "highly strung", but it's only since I became a mother that the way I feel has really impacted my life. See, the thing nobody ever tells you before you have kids is how much goddamned socialising has to be done. First there's the gamut of baby groups you feel compelled to haul your newborn to so that they get to 'socialise' with other babas (lest they grow up to be a freak like you); then it's the Mother & Toddler groups where you get to experience all those wonderful mummy-cliques; THEN they start school where not only do you have the twice-daily torture that is The School Run, but also the multitude of birthday parties to which your children are invited AND YOU ARE ALSO EXPECTED TO ATTEND!!! 

I am, and always have been, utter pants at small talk. Nothing is guaranteed to make me start sweating like a pig on heat more than the prospect of having to THINK OF THINGS TO SAY to someone I don't know particularly well, or indeed at all. I find this utterly excruciating and exhausting in equal measure, and am constantly worried I am going to blurt out something stupid that makes me look and sound like an idiot. 

So here's a summary of how these 'afflictions' affect me:

1. Anxiety: persistent feelings of worry, self-consciousness, low self-esteem and experiencing "excessive feelings of... dread in relation to feared social situations". These feelings occur before, during AND after the event.
2. Introvert: feeling drained after spending a period of time in the company of others, needing to retreat and recharge by spending time on my own immediately afterwards. Thoughtful and intensely private.
3. Highly Sensitive Person: easily overwhelmed by strong sensory input (loud noises, bright or flashing lights, coarse fabrics, strong smells). Very aware of other people's moods or a change in atmosphere. Startles ridiculously easily. 

This range of symptoms therefore always ensures Halloween is the single most terrifying/stressful 'Celebration' of my year. First there's the dread part: spending the whole day preparing myself mentally for the onslaught of noisy little screechy strangers demanding free sweets that evening. Then there's the actual moment they knock loudly on the door... and I jump out of my skin, even though I know who it is and am expecting them. Next comes the 'having to talk to other people' thing, which actually isn't that difficult when it's just a pair of gormless teenagers standing there in their lacklustre costume of mask and black saggy tracksuit. However it's mostly smaller, louder children who arrive with their parents in tow, which not only assaults all my highly-attuned senses at once but also leaves me umming and erring thinking of something to say after they've yelled "TRICK OR TREEEEEAAAATTT!" in my face. 

Honestly, sometimes I feel like one of those pathetic blonde teens in a cheap B horror movie who is afraid of her own shadow all the time. It's the stuff of nightmares, I tell you, and not the spooky sort you'd usually associate with Halloween, just my everyday life. Well, at least now I only have the fireworks every evening to make me jump a foot off the sofa. But my tension is easily diffused by being able to shout "Oh, feck off you noisy bastard!" to a firework. You really can't do that to Trick-or-Treaters.

Hello Lovely Peeps!

Hi there, and a warm welcome to you! Thanks for taking time out of your busy day to read this, you're a star! You are reading the very first post of my blog so a big "Cheers" from me. I am going to confess straight away that I'm still not entirely sure of the direction in which this blog will take me: basically I want a platform where I can ramble, record, take delight in, share, vent, empathise and point at stuff I like. And post some pretty photos too.

So a little bit about me then: I'm a 38-year old SAH mum of two living in the West Midlands with Bloke, my husband of 11 years, and our two gorgeous chiddlies, 9-year old daughter Monkey and 5-year old son Dude. (These are not their real names, obvs, but cyber-pseudonyms for the sake of their privacy in the future; blogs never die, so it would indeed be a travesty if the kids were to come across a particularly embarrassing story about themselves once they'd grown-up, especially as I would no doubt have to fork out for their respective therapy sessions as a result.)

Me and my darlings at Penshurst Place Sept. 2014

Since becoming a mum I have worked as an administrator, a shelf-stacker, an NCT newsletter editor, a shop-assistant, a cleaner and both assistant editor AND editor of a monthly papercrafting magazine, but presently I'm doing the hugely important job of being a full-time SAH mum to my two wee ones. I could complain about the mind-numbing tedium inevitable boredom that sometimes arises from performing the same tasks day in, day out, but that's not exactly news is it? They are growing up so fast, I want to be there for them as much as I can while they still want me to. It's good to remind myself of this too, my Mission Statement if you like.

When I'm not looking after the kids, running errands, doing the school run, supermarket shopping, cooking, cleaning, paying bills or attempting to reach the summit of Mount Laundry, I love to immerse myself in a bit of crafting. I have been a papercrafter for over ten years now, and make greeting cards to give to friends and family, and scrapbook albums and decorated canvases as presents. 

My cardmaking assembly-line. The desktop doesn't always look this neat unfortunately, but that's artistic licence for you!

Watercoloured stamped image. Ain't butterflies beautiful?

So far I have yet to find another pastime that gets me sufficiently "in the flow" - it really concentrates my mind and prevents it from ruminating and rehashing things over and over, as I tend to do about almost everything. When I am blending brightly coloured inks together or smearing paint onto a canvas or colouring an intricate stamped image, everything else just falls away and time slows down; I don't have to think about anything else that might be going on in my life when I craft, so it's like a more productive and satisfying method of meditating if you like. Crafting is therapy, and I highly recommend you give it a go if you haven't already. 

(Oh, and my Mama Magpie moniker? I like sparkly, shiny things and can spot 'em at fifty paces. Plus I am a typical Virgo and therefore all about the details, so it's always been in my nature to pick out the little things and have a good long look at them.)

I must say, this feels weird, writing to an audience that doesn't even exist yet; I think that's the reason I have held back on blogging for so long, I didn't know who I was supposed to be addressing. I've since read that you can't be an Every(wo)man in your blog, that is you can't possibly "speak" to every type of person who happens to stumble across your words at some point. You've just got to be authentic, and then likeminded peeps will find you... or something like that. As I said in the intro, I've not exactly worked out all the details yet. It's like, organic, man!

So, I think I've laboured over this all-important yet not-that-important-really-as-who's-gonna-be-reading-it-anyway? first post for long enough now... I'm clicking on Publish! Yes, I am! Look, here I go, I'm doing it... Shit, no turning back now ;-)