Haunted House

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I think that I like holidays in general, so it might not mean much to say that, but I LOVE fall...it is my absolute favorite season. So, because it falls in this season, Halloween gets a special nod from me. And I think that the special feelings of the holidays is more intensified when you have small children, and Halloween is no exception. Watching the excitment and the wonderment from Amelia and Emerson surrounding Halloween gets me even more excited. Tonight, we pulled out one more box of Halloween decorations, which the girls tore through and "decorated" the house. They were helping mommy out, so while I was outside finishing up chicken chores and taking the garbage to the curb, they decorated, which consisted of them piling all of the Halloween decorations on the coffee table in the living room. I smiled as a came into the door and saw the huge stack of decorations and their crooked little smiles, so proud at the work they had done. All day today our conversations have been about Halloween. We talked about decorating this morning on our way home from church. We talked about the Fall Festival at Jackson Park, and wearing our Halloween costumes to school, and trunk or treats, and trick or treating. When we were on the way to ballet practice, the Haunted House at the Fairgrounds came up and Amelia was curious. My mom and I answered questions she asked about the haunted house, but I stopped that conversation because little three-year-old ears were listening, and little six-year-old mouths don't know when to stop asking questions about scary things. We decorated together for the evening. Part of our Halloween decorations include little jack-o-lantern...well...lanterns that hang along the pathway to our back door. They have a spot for a tea light and they light up and look spooky. While we were outside we could hear coyotes in the woods by my uncle. As soon as the girls asked what that noise was, and I told them, they were back inside in a flash. Halloween is fun...for the most part! After reading our stories for the evening, I was tucking Amelia into bed. She was getting everything situated and getting ready to crawl under her pillows when she paused and started her one more thing mommy moment for the night. "Mommy, could we go back to that conversation earlier about the haunted house." "Um...are you sure you want to talk about this right before bed?" "Um...yeah...why wouldn't I?" "Well, I just don't want you talking about something that might scare you right before bed..." "Oh...no...that won't happen. So, what's so bad about this haunted house?" "Well, they just have creepy things in it. It's a haunted house, so they just do different things to make it scary." "What are the skeletons made of?" "What?!" "Well, it's a haunted house. I'm assuming they have skeletons in a haunted house. So, what are the skeletons made of?" "I'm assuming plastic bones..." "Not real ones?" "No, Amelia...I don't think they're real ones." "So, can you take me to the haunted house?" "No." "Why not?" "It's too scary for a six year old. I'll let you go when you're fourteen. Maybe." "Fourteen? That's so not fair. How about ten?" "Nope...fourteen..." "Eleven?" "Amelia! I'm not negotiating with you about this right now." "Come on, mom," complete with eye roll, "Haunted houses are so my thing." I smiled and patted her on the head. "OK, Miss crawling under my pillow at night because I might be a little afraid of not doing that..." She smiled back at me, shook her head, and said, "I can't fool you, huh mom..." How often do we, even as adults, do this though? How many times have things come up in our lives that we are terrified to do, but we do them anyway? Why? What possesses us to do this? Little miss Amelia, who hides under her pillow at night, who won't walk to the back of our house after dark, who runs from her room to the bathroom at night, and then does the same back to her bed and takes a running leap to get into bed, claims that haunted houses are "her thing?" Why? We do the same thing as adults. What is the draw of being scared? Why do we go to haunted houses? Why do we watch horror movies? Why do we like being scared? Want to know my theory? Well, if you don't, then stop reading ------> here. My theory is that real life is much worse! Real life is scary! Adult responsibilities are scary. Paying bills, stress at work, government shutdowns, grocery worker strikes, natural disasters, family and friends with cancer, children being abducted, financial issues, GMOs, people hurting other people, increasing crime rates, hatred between people, child molesters, robberies, car accidents...the list goes on and on. Real life is scary! I think that haunted houses and scary movies and Halloween are all fun because they are controlled scary. When I used to go to the haunted fairgrounds with my friends or my husband, it was scary! The guy that jumps out at the end with the chainsaw got my heart beating faster, but I knew that he wasn't coming after me really. I knew that I was safe. That it was all staged...all an act. Real life? It isn't staged. When I look at the events in my life for even the last ten years, scary things have happened. And they were not staged. They were not fun. I was not safe at the end of the tour. And when you each pause and take a look at your lives, I think you might agree with me. Haunted houses seem much more appealing than real life when you have to be faced with either a nightmare that ends at the end of the dark tunnel, or one that just might not end... But, do you know what? I wouldn't trade real life for the control of a haunted house EVER! Sure, real life is scary! But it's also so, so beautiful. Even though I experienced some scary things in college and changed my career path after completing all the requirements for medical school, I never would have gotten my job with Central Kitsap School District as an SLP and I woulnd't have the friends and coworkers I have today. And when my grandma's house burned down, I was terrified, but if that hadn't happened she wouldn't have moved in with us and I wouldn't have gotten those last few precious moments with one of the ladies that I've admired most in my life. And as petrified as I was when my dad was diagnosed with a medical condition, it never would have led to his life being saved. And as heartbroken as I was and as scary as it was during the time that my husband passed away, had that part of my life not happened I wouldn't have my two babies that bless me every day! Life is scary...but you can't let that hold you back from pressing on, and working your way through. Sure, you're going to have scary times. And you're going to be frozen in fear, and reeling from the terror. BUT, you come out the other side! And with the loving God that brings us to the scary things, He'll be there to walk you through to that other side. And even though life is scary, make sure that you are taking the time to see the beauty in life also! Don't let the scary get to you...because if it does, you miss the beauty! You miss the moments where the sun rises the next day and all is peaceful. It's taken me a while to get there, and I'm not saying that I don't have moments that bring me to my knees with fear, because I do. But, then I hear Amelia tell me that haunted houses are her thing, and I hear the courage and see the bravery of a six-year-old girl and I know that I don't have to be afraid of the man with the chainsaw because I'm at the end, and no one can hurt me now.