October has once again rolled around, and with it comes pumpkin spice flavoring in every food and drink imaginable. While I have a personal grudge against pumpkin spice (why can't any restaurants remember the other fall flavors like caramal, apple, maple, german spice, nutmeg?) I do love this month with my whole heart. October has that unique vibe that is equal parts cozy and spooky in all the best ways. Think about what aesthetics tend to come to mind when picturing the month. Curling up in the window seat of a log cabin with a favorite book and a mug of cocoa on a rainy day? A hay ride through a pumpkin patch with the crisp fall breeze in your hair? A bonfire and a trip to a haunted house? There is just no other time of year as soothing to the soul as October.
But let's not forget about what this month means to fandom communities. Countless fan events tend to happen every year in October. On tumblr especially, you can't scroll more than a few posts before bumping into yet another bingo challenge or prompt list or gift exchange. We've got Flufftober, Whumptober, Angstober, Cozytober, Inktober, Fictober, Kinktober, OCtober, and too many more to even keep track of. No matter what else is going on in my life, I always get so much joy out of participating in these kind of events. There's something inherently beautiful about seeing hoards of fellow fans creating and sharing their work. We love our fandoms, and we're proud of it.
I also tend to use these October fan events as a way to prep for NaNoWriMo (which is a bit of a hot topic this year; I'll cover my thoughts on that in a separate post). It gets me into the habit of writing every day, which is tough for me as a chronic procrastinator with very few spoons each day. This year, I've decided to ease some of the pressure on myself by not trying to complete any one October event. Instead of doing 31 prompts from one event's list, I'm simply picking and choosing my favorite prompts from each list and doing basically as many entries as I have the time/energy/will to do.
Oh, another perk to the month of October is fall decorating. Because of my unhealthy obsession with the season, I actually do my fall decorating the very first day of September, and leave it up until the beginning of advent. Honestly, I'd leave it up year round except that it would lessen the joy of actually reaching the season each year. This year, my decorating has sadly been restricted due to the new cats. Did I make a blog post on them? Well, if not, I adopted two kittens earlier this year. They're now six months old and every bit the chaos gremlins they can manage to be. They decided within minutes that all of the fall decorations were fair game, so I was forced to put most of it back in storage. Still got the wreath on the door and some garlands and decorative figures on the counters. It will have to do. Such are the "joys" of being a pet parent.
Another reason I'm so biased towards October is that it's my birth month. As I approach my birthday this year, it's finally hitting me that I'm almost thirty years old. I don't know how to feel about that. Having only really started to live and grow and evolve as a person after my divorce a couple years ago, I feel like I've barely dipped my toe in the waters of adulthood yet. And then my birthday rolls around and reminds that, actually, I'm over a decade into adulthood. No matter how many times I tell myself that everyone lives life at their own pace and it's not a footrace, I still feel weirdly like I'm being left behind and everyone else in my age group is so much farther out in front. Learning to accept that life isn't a competition and I don't need to obey anyone else's timetable for it... yeah, that's something I'm still working on. I think I'm almost there, though. I'm certainly less stressed going into this birthday than I was a year ago.
Let's see: the return of pumpkin scented candles, massive flood of fandom events, fall decorating, cozy vibes, hoodie weather, ghost stories around a bonfire, my birthday... Honestly, it shouldn't be too surprising that October is my favorite month of the year. I'm happy to be back in spooky season again. Now if only Walmart would let me enjoy the season before they start putting out their Christmas decorations. -_-
Background Image by Annie Nyle