We've probably all heard it said that Halloween is the one day of the year where "you don't have to be yourself". It's a tagline of the holiday, ever since I was a child. And I suppose, when I was younger, I felt that my love of Halloween could be connected to my imagination; my desire to play pretend.
I was always big on imaginative play, whether it was physically playing dress-up, or talking to a doll or stuffed animal as if they could hear (I have a very distinct memory of staying up until 11PM one night talking to my Princess Jasmine doll, trying to psychoanalyze my second-grade bullies!) or whether it was a more internal thing, imagining myself in a world outside my own, as a character in a favorite piece of media, or a celebrity in some alternate life. Sometimes I even imagined my own life, but different. Maybe I was best friends with the popular girls, or the first girl in class to have a boyfriend, or even just simply had siblings (such as the twin sister, Olivia, that I talked to in diner mirrors and the reflection in my sunglasses when I was six.). I suppose, on the surface, it really was no surprise that my favorite holiday would be one all about pretending to be someone else.
But when I look back on it, I don't think that was actually the case at all.
I didn't have a very strong sense of identity as a child, or even a teenager. There was really nothing, save for my love for Halloween, which I was afraid to express outwardly back then, that I felt "defined" me, as a person. I was a shy only child, who really had no idea how to socialize. My primary focus every single day, was simply to avoid being judged. Don't say the wrong thing. Don't wear the wrong thing. Don't express interest in the wrong thing. Fly under the radar. When I think about who I was, what I would say was "me", then, I honestly don't know. The things I associate with my younger self are honestly shyness, anxiety, and being whatever I felt I "needed" to be to fit in with whoever was around me at any given time. My outfits were chosen based on whatever was "on trend". My interests were kept quiet, and tailored to match those of whomever I was speaking to. I dreaded being asked about "favorite" things, especially in a public forum, because I never knew the right answer, the answer that wouldn't be met with a chorus of giggles and a room full of side-eye. (I still cringe when I think about being publicly asked my favorite music group during a keyboarding class in eighth grade, and the reaction I got when I blurted out "Nsync", not realizing that boy bands were, apparently, no longer a cool thing to like.) I even once, blasphemously, claimed Christmas was my favorite holiday during a survey project in class, because I was afraid of being the only person to stray from the crowd.
I don't know if I was ever myself, back then.
Halloween, though, was different. I didn't always have the language to describe it, and sometimes I feel like I still fail to express it properly, but I knew I felt different on that day, and during that time, in general. Everything suddenly made sense to me, and I didn't feel even slightly as awkward as I did on a "normal" day. I remember trying to write a poem one year, I was somewhere between the ages of twelve and fourteen, in which I attempted to describe that feeling. I obviously don't remember it word for word (though I do wish I'd kept some of the notebooks I wrote these things in back then), but it was something about how I never felt like I fit in, but once Halloween came around it felt like one big present wrapped up with my name on it, as if everyone was acting this way, celebrating this thing, just for me.
Did I get a charge out of "not having to be myself", for a day? Perhaps...but the more I think about it now, the more I realize I actually wasn't myself, the rest of the year. Deliberately trying to not have a personality, was my personality. And that's not a personality at all, is it?
Halloween was the one time of year that I knew. That I was sure. Whatever it was about Halloween, whatever jolted me to life during that season, that was who I was. I used to say I felt like a boarding school student, who only got to come home during September and October. I was disconnected from the world, from myself, during the other months of the year, and I came to realize, slowly but surely, that the shy girl who just wanted to fade into the background, really wasn't me. It was as if that was my costume, and once I became aware of the Halloweentown movies and the lore of how that universe had come to be, it was hard for me not to believe that I was something similar; some being that was too much for the mortal world, but somehow missed the bus when everyone was officially banished. My life was, actually, almost a reverse of Halloween itself. I spent the rest of the year in "costume", masquerading as this shy, unsure, very bland and very basic human girl, and then, once the time came, I could finally take my true form.
And I've realized, over time, that Halloween was not, in fact, the one time of the year when I didn't have to be myself...It's always been the one time of year where I've truly felt that I could.
In general, I feel like Halloween-time is the most comfortable time to be alive. People seem happier, and any interest that anyone has, even mildly, that could be seen as "weird", is accepted by the masses. People really have fun with Halloween, from the way they dress to the way they decorate, and while I, personally, will never turn back from embracing the lifestyle all year round, sometimes I wish that the entire world could just be as they are at Halloween. Not just so I would have their decorations to look at and feel more at home myself, but because there's an authenticity I see at Halloween that's missing from the other times of the year.
You're not obligated to celebrate Halloween the way you are at other holidays, like Thanksgiving or Christmas, yet more and more people are going all out each year. Are they trying to escape something? Perhaps...It is a nice break from the mundane, no matter who you are, but sometimes I feel it's much deeper than that. Like everyone is chasing their truest self, but only feels allowed to think about it during that one particular time, until life becomes an endless assembly line of obligation again. Some people think Halloween is frivolous, and for children, but I think, for some people, it's the only time adults feel allowed to have fun...and also, like myself, the only time the awkward, insecure children feel safe within themselves.
Stay spooky, my friends. I leave you with two pictures of me in my truest form, one from the origin of my love for Halloween at age four, and one from 2022. Always living my best spooky life.
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