Since childhood I've been fascinated with the legends of vampires--dark, seductive bloodsuckers stalking nearby alleyways, waiting to take me to their dark lairs and work their night magick on me. A young girl's (and now adult's) fancy.
I of course know better now--I've read all about real vampires, and have had the absolute privilege to meet one in real life. Still, though, the romance and drama surrounds them and their ways--maybe because I want it to, or maybe because the vampires I've met and heard about have done nothing to dispel it.
Whatever the case, I am still, and will continue to be, enchanted by vampires, whether it's because of their mysterious lives or snappy dressing.
I think my obsession began with Bram Stoker's Dracula, which I saw when it first hit theatres. I was a toddler.
Since then, even if my outer shell said otherwise to fit in, my inner heart has always believed in vampires, and that love survives death. Perhaps that is why I am so ensorcelled by the spell they weave--they carry with them the possibility of immortal love, something I think mere humans are not capable of. Or, if they are, they certainly show no tendencies towards it.
My research into vampires led me to this article, Real Vampires, by a writer named Inanna Arthen. This article convinced all my selves, once and for all, that vampires exist. The article also led me to the discovery of Sanguinarius.org, a support site for vampires and vampire lifestylers.
All I had to do, it seemed, was meet a real vampire. I did recently--ironically in the tropics, really the last place I expected to find a vampire. There is a reason that the legends flourished in places like Europe, where "forty days and nights of rain" is an English summer. Vampires are photosensitive.
Indeed, I had a first-hand account of this in the class we shared at college: our class used less electricity than the rest of them by never having the lights on, which was just fine with the environmentally-conscious young activists with our bright minds on the future.
If you've never seen sarcasm before, consider yourself thoroughly introduced.
It was just fine with us, even if the rest isn't true. I, personally, treasure my friendship with 'the Vampire', as he's called at school, and hope that we will be friends for many years. Even if I am the friend from Hell (the Ever-Hopeful Friend from Hell...).
My obsession continues, and as it does I will let my findings be known.