Vampires and High School

I've managed to get myself hooked on "The Vampire Diaries" and I've been catching up on the first two seasons on Netflix.  It's still not Buffy or Angel, but it's good.  There are definitely parallels between the two universes/storylines/love triangles.

It's really interesting to me all the different takes on vampire lore.  Everything from the original "Dracula" legends to Jim Butcher's vampire courts in the Dresden Files series, to Anne Rice's "Lestat", Joss Whedon's "Buffyverse", and Stephanie Meyer's "Twilight" series.  Now there is a "new" lore for Vampire Diaries.

They all fall back to one thing though, that a) vampires exist and b) there are still the original vampires out there somewhere.  I have to wonder how much time these writers spend researching the various myths, legends, and lore around the vampire, or if they just are doing a basic spin off of Dracula.  The idea that vampires are real is intriguing.  I know that there are people living that are into blood drinking.  Personally, I believe that psychic vampires are much more likely and present and not undead.  It's the whole walking dead thing I have trouble believing.

I can remember starting in second or third grade and voraciously reading anything I could get my hands on regarding ghosts.  Yes I was a weird child.   I don't know why I was drawn to them.  There is just something fun about scaring yourself I guess.  Why else do we tell scary stories around campfires?  I used to check the same book out from the school library about various ghosts just to look at the pictures.  Oddly enough I didn't discover Anne Rice until I was out of high school.

I want to get back into writing.  I think the journaling I'm doing for my therapist is helping urge that on.  I just have no idea what I'd be writing about right now.  I'd love to do more research on faerie lore and other occult topics.  I just don't know that I can come up with an idea that would original enough to be read by others.  I need to be looking for a job, not writing. 

And speaking of high school . . . So I finally got onto Facebook (yikes) and I feel awkward reaching out to the people I went to school with. I'm realizing I have a pattern that when I leave someplace, I completely cut that part of my life off.  I left school and didn't really have anyone I kept in touch with.  I was such a friggin' mess.  I was as usual wrapped up in my own shit and let's face it, but I didn't really give anyone a reason to stay in touch with me.  I was not a good person.  Not to myself and not to others.  I fell apart in high school.  D completely fucked up my life and I didn't do anything to take control of my life back until years later.

It makes me happy to see people that I cared about doing well for themselves.  I'm sad that I look back on who I was and how many people I hurt.  It's been 12 years since I graduated and no one has really reached out to me.  It's difficult for me not to take that as a sign to just let it go and come to the determination that people don't want me in their lives.  I just want a chance to make amends, to catch up, and maybe show them I am different than I was.

There is still the little evil me in the back of my head whispering that I haven't changed.  That I am the same person.  That I don't deserve friends or love, etc. etc.  That voice needs to be silenced.  The self doubts I have are only a hindrance.  I know that I am a different person.  A better person.

I would not have a husband and daughter if I hadn't changed.  They help make me a better person every day.  And every day I thank the Goddess that they are in my life and are the rocks that keeps me grounded and sane.