The Haunting of Becoming

Becoming is never easy. It is fractured, haunted, and unfamiliar. I used to think I could grow by simply shedding my past, but the truth is, the past never leaves. It lingers like ghosts: the pleaser, the entrepreneur, the motivator. They watch from the corners as I try to write.

But lately, I’ve started listening to a different voice. It’s quieter and afraid, but it doesn’t go away. It pulls me toward the page, toward stories, toward the shadows I’ve tried to avoid. It feels unsettling and thrilling all at once. It even followed me into a dream I had while on vacation, where the world was ending and my greatest regret was not finishing my book. That dream clings to me still, haunting the edges of my subconscious. For the first time, I feel myself shifting, not back into the roles I once played, but into something new that is taking shape through the stories I write.

Stepping away from social media these past couple of weeks made that shift impossible to ignore. Without the constant noise of posting and scrolling, I could finally hear the pull more clearly. At first, the silence was uncomfortable, almost like standing in an unfamiliar room. But in that quiet, I realized the one thing I wanted to focus on was writing, especially horror.

But choosing writing doesn’t mean the past disappears. The silence that cleared space for my voice also made room for the ghosts. They slip in when I sit down to write, patient and familiar, like shadows that never left. One by one, they step forward.

The Motivator. She is the easiest to spot, a ghost that has followed me since my teenage years. She counts everything in numbers and milestones, always demanding the next achievement. No matter how high she climbs, the bar rises again. She is a mad scientist in the dark, chasing breakthroughs that promise to validate her worth and unlock happiness shaped by the world’s relentless hunger for more. But the longer she works, the more she burns herself hollow. True happiness slips further away and her shadow only deepens. She lingers still, watching from the corners.

The Entrepreneur. The Motivator’s daughter, the one who had the courage to bet on herself. She baked until her hands ached, chasing approval through work and output. The hours were long, the pay almost nothing, but she tasted freedom outside the corporate world. That freedom was a gift she never fully appreciated. It also carried a curse. Endless hours of isolation, too much silence, and the slow unraveling that comes from living inside the darker corners of her mind. Even now, her shadow waits in the quiet.

The Pleaser. She twisted herself into knots to keep others comfortable, losing pieces of herself with every contortion. She never said no, even when it left her anxious and withered. She smiled so no one would see the storm inside, desperate for love that always felt just out of reach. Her worth lived in the eyes of others, until they consumed her completely and left nothing behind but bones tangled in a noose. Her whisper follows me into every room.

The Positivity Mask. The one who smiled on the outside even when the words felt false. She grinned wide enough to hide the cracks, her voice always cheerful, always encouraging, even when it rang hollow. People loved her videos and urged her to keep going, to do it for those who needed the light. But the weight of constant performance left her no room for anger, no room to fall apart, no room to admit she was drowning. The mask became a distraction too, pulling her away from her true desires. Each time she wore it, it grew heavier, until it fused to her skin and became her face. Her silence is louder than her cheer.

The Dreamer. The most haunting of all. The one who held her dreams close but never spoke them aloud, afraid they would dissolve in the light. Her imagination is vivid, her heart full of stories, but the dreams only reveal themselves when she feels ready to see them. Now she dreams of becoming a published author of many books. She is not naive. She knows it will take hard work and require her full attention. She understands there are rules to play by, like building a presence and shaping an identity. She has waited the longest, lingering in the shadows, and now her whisper is the loudest of them all.

But listening to her doesn’t silence the others. They circle me when I write, their whispers overlapping until I can’t always tell which voice is mine. Following the Dreamer is thrilling, but unnerving too, because every step forward feels like walking deeper into a house where the walls keep shifting. My gut keeps telling me to follow her, even though I don’t have the answers and there is no guarantee it will lead anywhere.

Maybe I open one door only to be trapped by my inner gremlin Greta, who holds the knife I once stabbed her with. She smiles as she embraces me, gloating that she knew I would return. Or maybe the Pleaser and the Positivity Mask team up, dragging me into a room where I must perform and perform until I lose my grip on who I really am.

Despite not knowing which ghosts wait behind the doors, I feel the pull to write my novel and my short stories. I want to commit fully to the identity of a horror author. That means shifting how I create, and doing it on my terms.

Part of this shift means leaning into horror writing content. I want to create a new cadence here with a monthly newsletter that blends what I’m writing with what I’m living. Each one will carry echoes of my ghosts alongside personal reflections, short horror-inspired stories, updates on my book, and maybe some horror movie and book recommendations. I am also shifting my social media to reflect this focus, creating spaces where I can share my writing process, horror themes, and the strange inspiration that fuels my stories. It feels like another door I am opening, one that leads to a ghost I have never met before — the Horror Author.

This is also the moment to let go of the old name. Think Happy Thoughts no longer fits who I am becoming. Like the ghosts of my past selves, it lingers, but it does not belong to me anymore. I’ve stepped into a different house now, one where the rooms are lined with shadows and the stories bloom in the dark.

This space is becoming The Dark Petal, a place where we bloom through the hauntings we carry.

I invite you to come with me as I step inside this haunted house, my ghosts at my side as I continue to open doors to the unknown. Will it be scary and messy? Of course. Will I close doors and open new ones along the way? Absolutely. But I’m learning that there is beauty in the unknown. We are both our light and our shadows, and I want to explore that here through my writing. So I leave you with this.

The haunting of becoming is learning that your shadows never leave. You carry them with you, and sometimes, they’re the ones holding the lantern.