Happy Halloween. I mean Valentine’s!

I always get the two mixed up. Well, there’s so much red around it is quite easy to see the similarities, isn’t it?
One of these special occasions fills me with sheer horror, and the other feels so comfortable, natural and relaxed I think it should be a more than a once a year thing. However, I’ve always been a big fan of Halloween, and even with all of the monsters associated with it, I don’t find it half as scary as Valentine’s Day.

My Inner Romantic is turning over in his grave.

It was unfortunate that he was shot through his heart by a misguided arrow fired by Cupid himself. Cupid wasn’t actually aiming for my Inner Romantic, in all fairness to him, but his aim was certainly off that day. The arrow ricocheted off the steel reinforced armour  a would-be suitor of mine was wearing, and pierced the heart of the most loved-up part of my Inner Being. Illusions shattered, my Inner Romantic turned his back on affairs of the heart and started grumbling profusely. Over time, moaning and groaning became his number one passion. And, now he is a natural at it.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. My Inner Romantic knew that things were changing a couple of days before the arrow changed his life forever. He knew that the world around had changed. Gone were the days of skipping through the daisies across a field in a flowery white dress. Gone were the birds suddenly appearing when a certain someone was around. And gone were the butterflies in the stomach, clammy hands and nervous laughter. He just wasn’t himself anymore. Everything he loved to live for had gone. Well, they were still there, but different. They were more real. More harsh. His perfect dream had become a living nightmare.

I don’t think that my Inner Romantic expected how quickly the change came over him. One moment, he was his less than happy self, and in the next he wasn’t. He was different. Changed and charged. Grumpy. Cold and moaning. He’d focussed on the wrong thing at the wrong time, and that was that. Cupid’s arrow put an end to one way of thinking, and instantly created another, more sinister model.

The day my Inner Romantic was shot through the heart was the day that my Inner Zombie was born.

Cold hearted with a strange sense of humour, he stirs deep within me every now and then. He remembers the butterfly feeling, but this time he can show me them. He can remove a hand to point out just how un-clammy it is nowadays. And if there is a love bird around, it shouldn’t stay around for long, in case it suddenly finds itself being eaten.

Every now and again, however, he seems to feel the pangs for his previous life. He’ll look at a red rose, or sing a particularly heartfelt love song, or watch couples running off into the golden sunset, and his gruff exterior will soften. He will then need to lie down to re-set for a few weeks, and then he’ll be back as rancid as before.

He’s not unhappy, my Inner Romantic. You can’t actually tell whether he is anything apart from extremely grumpy, but I think he misses his old ways. I think he misses his old days, the ones where he lived full of love, seeing the world through rose coloured glasses. The days before his heart was broken by Cupid’s arrow…