“Jumpin’ in the pool like you. Be sensitive like you.”

— The Marías

Laureline grew up in a strict and severe household, where love was rationed and rules were treated as law.
Her only escape was art — she spent hours creating, tinkering, trying to express to others what she couldn’t put into words, pouring her unspoken thoughts onto paper.

When her parents forbade her from attending art school, she was devastated. She traded her markers, her clay tools, her short stories, and drafts for textbooks and lectures at the university.

When she met you, she had no desire to become a mother — she was afraid of repeating the same patterns as her parents.
But without even realizing it, she got married, and soon after came Sonya — with her bright little eyes and red curls. In no time, Laureline was a mother. She had a family.

Six years later, on this October 31st, 2025, this Halloween night, she’s on a mission.
She’s taking her old ghost costume out of the closet and heading out with her daughter to wander the neighborhood for candy.
And she’ll do everything she can to make her daughter’s very first Halloween a magical night.

Dear love,

Time keeps passing, and it’s getting harder for me to remember that time — when I still lived with my parents and all I knew were long, lonely days.

I wasn’t sad, not really.
I had my sketchbook and a few alcohol markers, and I spent my days filling those pages with colors — creating things that were only fantastic because they were mine, because I had brought them to life.

When they forbade me from going to art school, told me to pack away my sculptures and “grow up,” I was devastated — as if they had taken happiness away from me, and the dull life that waited ahead was all I could ever hope for.

Then there was you.
You appeared when I least expected it — when I had stopped expecting anything at all, when I had started to “grow up.”

And you gave me so much more than a place to sleep or the means to become respectable.
You painted on my face the most beautiful colors this world had to offer.
And together, we created my greatest masterpiece — Sonya, our daughter.

And for all of this, there will never be enough words to express what I feel.
So until I can truly tell you how grateful I am, here is all I can give you for now:

Thank you.