Happy Halloween!

As a child I was at once terrified of Halloween and in love with it. When we would walk past the racks of masks and decorations in the store I would cry, or close my eyes and hide because it all scared me. I was often scared of other trick-or-treaters in the neighborhood, their costumes being to scary for the incredibly timid, shy and easily scared me.

Once my mom worked very hard to make me a Miss Piggy costume, but a kid in our neighborhood was dressed as a very spooky wolf with light up red eyes. I was no fool and read a lot of fairy tales, so I knew my little piggy self would not stand a chance against that wolf on the street. I made my mom take me home early, because the promise of candy was not enough for me to risk getting torn to bits by that wolf. Did I know in my head that it was just another kid in a costume, yes, but to my incredibly active imagination there was a chance, however small, that the wolf was real and I was at risk.

I was a child with an overactive imagination and Halloween was sometimes just too much for my poor head to wrap around. I also had very little understanding of the line between fantasy and reality (my first crushes were on Disney’s Robin Hood and Kermit the Frog and I did not consider either of them to be anything less than real). It is an issue that I still occasionally have problems with, but at least now I can usually tell the difference between a monster and a mask on a wall.

Halloween would grow from a force of fear and fascination into a proper obsession. Many of my everyday home decor comes from the Halloween decor in stores; skulls, bats, ravens, crows, and the occult. Every year less and less of our Halloween decorations are taken down, so the house gets more and more Halloween all year round. I think it is amazing that I am still somewhere inside the little girl who would hide her face when Halloween was out in the stores. Maybe I am just the brave woman that a scared little girl becomes when she faces her fears. If you can’t beat it embrace it?

Halloween Blessings!