Finding "Goth"

Good Morning, Kindergothlings. Oh boy, do I have a rant. But, I will be nice and save that for Instagram...Twitter just isn't enough characters...

So, settle in for a bit of a lengthy post for Samhain....

Baelfire

Today, I get to introduce you to one of my favorite people, Baelfire, which, outside of cringe-y TV shows, is the Celtic Pagan word for Beltane celebration bonfires.

I’ve known her for about...19 years I believe, and it feels so insane to say...well, type that out.  

We were “Goth” before any of us even knew what that was.  It wasn’t like we Google to see what clique we should join, we just existed.  Being raised in a very small town, I can’t say we started out playing The Cure on repeat, or cooing over Peter Murphy’s cheekbones, but it was a trip.  

Junior High is when we realized we were in our own little section of the world, hating all the other humans, watching “The Craft” and “The Little Vampire.” Now, I get that movie isn’t particularly “goth,” but the 2002 film definitely planted a seed of vamp-enthusiasm that exists to this day. Later on, I'd actually be a student of the Vampire Professor herself. Read more about that here.

As I mentioned to "Black Friday" on Twitter, the subculture is very much like “Fight Club.”  No one ever really talked about it.  I know that in 2017 there are a thousand “Wikihow” pages of the "right" outfits and such.  That was absolutely not the case when we were kids, it was just something you kind of fell into.  We wore black clothes, band shirts, excessive jewelry, and pentagrams.  Later on, we’d delve deeper into Garnerian Wicca after drawing drawing from pop culture, and attempted to create our own grimoires.

I wish, wish, wish that we hadn’t be so very cynical to the point where we took no pictures, and if we did, we didn’t keep them. I’d love to be going through that bit of nostalgia right about now.

Outside of school, where people just avoided us at all costs (win-win situation), we would frequent local cemeteries and such. At one point, we lived in the same area and there was a creepy cemetery kind of in between our houses.  As well as, what used to be an amphitheater, probably 60 years ago or so.  Being very stupid, we went up to the rickety wooden stage, and down its stairs to what looked like a fucking torture dungeon.  I don’t know who owned the property at that point, but it looked like there were definitely being seances done there.  This area was all in and around the towns connected to Woodbury, Kentucky, known for the notoriously haunted Woodbury Hotel.

Honestly, the way we were raised and how our childhoods played out, absolutely had a huge influence on us being drawn to the “dark side,” as we jokingly referred to it.  It’s emotionally exhausting to go through all kinds of shit and still try to be a perky kid in public.  So, we stopped trying.

High school was fairly uneventful.  Unfortunately, for some time, Baelfire and I weren't able to stay in the same town.  We managed to keep in touch decently with social media. I spent high school with my head up my ass, so to speak, having embarrassingly fallen for a shitty mortal.  Nearing graduation, I had just about fallen away from my dark roots, and actually thought, as I mentioned in my bio, that I would experiment with being a Normie.

Not long after I started college, I met Bertena Varney, the Vampire Professor herself.  To me, she was a teacher of sociology, self-expression, and confidence.  I stopped trying to hide who I was

In 2015, I ditched the persona, and the Normie boyfriend.  Freedom.

Since then, we've spiraled down the rabbit hole, essentially (re)discovering everything that we missed during high school:  Black Veil Brides, Motionless in White (these men just warm my black little heart,) and all kinds of amazing advances in the world of Goth.

Which brings us to today, have a safe Samhain, everyone! Don't be too harsh on those dressed in a Goth "costume." Remember that our very core is self-expression. I truly hope that I haven't bored you to death.Winter will be here before we know it. For the month of November, each post will be another bit of nostalgia. I will be pulling my angst-y Goth poetry from the depths of all I that I can find.