Homecoming...

For six long years…I lived in a world of darkness. I was never sure if it was something that was triggered by my brutal divorce of if years of repression by worrying so much about outward appearances in the community brought it on…but I would come home every day to a home reminiscent of Dracula’s and love every minute of it. Perhaps it was having my eyes opened to the actual existence of the supernatural from my first unexplainable paranormal experience…who knows. Shortly after the PRINT organization was formed, my wife and I spent every waking moment searching for more darkness. Our free weekends took place in suspected haunted houses and old, country cemeteries during the night. The tingle of fear that occurred while your eyes were trying to adjust to nothingness and not knowing what could possibly be lurking behind the next tree became like a drug that I absolutely had to have or I would go insane. Hell, I even remember one year where we realized in June that we still had a few Halloween decorations up in the home. Very few people outside of our relationship could grasp the concept or even begin to try and understand our views on happiness and the world around us. The closest explanation would rank somewhere up there with watching every episode of the Addams Family back to back on an endless loop. We had very few friends and visitors in our lives…and we liked it that way. Complete strangers would walk the other direction almost as though they could sense the unusualness that was coming their way. It was nice to do in a Wal-Mart line from time to time so it really wasn’t all that bad. Shortly after that, we adopted a forgotten cemetery in the middle of nowhere and began restoration work surrounded by the constant reminder of death…and a few dozen venomous snakes here and there for variety and to keep you on your toes. Our final journey into darkness came at the hands of our wedding where we tied the knot surrounded by friends and family under a cemetery pavilion during a violent thunderstorm as the sun set. I had never seen her look so beautiful in my entire life…illuminated by only candle light while hundreds of potential ghosts gave us their blessing knowing that our union began in exactly the same spot in which it would end. Suddenly, exactly upon the inevitable ‘I do’…the rain stopped falling and the sun shone blindingly through the trees creating a rainbow that stretched from end to end of the once darkened graveyard. I didn’t exactly notice at the time but it was almost as though it was some type of natural metaphor for an awakening within the both of us. Within weeks, our home and dispositions became brighter than ever before. It was as though the darkness in which our relationship was built had gone away to reveal to those around some type of new and improved couple that was altogether unusual to the both of us. Without so much as even a thought towards our achievements regarding the paranormal research field or the non profit work we had accomplished towards the forever residents of the forgotten cemetery, we walked on eggshells hand in hand towards the sun with squinting eyes in the direction to an unknown future. Nature again covered the lonely headstones of Hopewell Cemetery and the PRINT organization sat covered in dust on a book shelf in the form of two published novels below the monument of wedding and honeymoon memorabilia in our now cheery living space. Together, the two of us became simultaneous strangers with nothing much to talk about. In our desperate search for normalcy and illumination, the two of us became nothing more than a symbol of the spirits we had so recently searched for and the historical markers cleared from the hiding spots in a forgotten forest. Technically, we were beginning to die. Why, I now ask myself, did we try so hard to change who we were regardless of the fact that it altered the individualism that the two of us had fell in love with in the first place? In the end, the people we were trying so hard to impress and begging silently for acceptance will end up the inevitable victim of death itself. On a quest for greatness always lies the possibility of endangering your true self at the hands of outsiders. I personally believe that change is the reason why so many marital unions are destined to fail. Most people shoot for bigger things, more money, and social acceptance…forgetting the true reasons why they fell in love in the first place because they’re blinded by the ultimate goal of perfection. In our case, the unusualness of our lives and the darkness that surrounded us was the true attraction towards one another and the adhesive that bonded us together. Ultimately, what does it matter if anyone else in this crazy world ‘gets you’? As long as the one that loves you understands where you’re coming from…who cares what the neighbors think…or your extended families or the general public for that matter? They’re not the ones you lie in bed with, cuddled up for protection against the cold night, or the ones that will sit with you on summer evenings in recollection of youth on a porch swing swapping false teeth and wondering why your children can’t stand to be around you. With this epiphany in mind, we knocked the cob webs off of the equipment and accepted an investigation. A day later, we were fighting the elements so that one more misplaced soul’s marker could again see sunlight and reveal it to a world that had long forgotten them. A darting shadow in a creepy room and a few dodged copperheads later, a sense of normalcy began to sink into my welcoming soul once more. I love my life, my wife, and the future that lies before me…even though it may be in ways that most people could never imagine. My advice to anyone who would listen is to never deny who you truly are regardless of how many attempt to convince you that you’re denying yourself of what you could be. The destination that they’re speaking of is through their eyes only. Your own eyes are what matters. Not everyone is suited to live in the light or be journeying towards it. Sometimes, you yourself may be the illumination in the darkness that is so feared by those that shun and persecute you. Right about now…some of you may be saying to yourself that you don’t understand where I’m heading with this or where I came from to begin with. That’s okay. You’re not supposed to. Now…if you’ll excuse me…it’s May…and my wife and I have some Halloween decorations to dig out of storage. It’s beginning to feel a lot like home again. Our home…