Halloween has changed since I was a tot. Granted my perspective has changed, as I am now an adult…or at least old enough to be expected to act like one. As a child, the build-up to a night of free candy usually began about a week or ten days away from All Hallows Eve. The discussion amongst my friends was what costume you were going to choose. Of course, there was also the usual swapping of stories of major hauls from previous Halloweens. These stories were the Trick or Treat equivalent of fishing stories swapped among our fathers over a frosty brew and great training for our turn on the stool.
I get the basic concept of Halloween being a night to dress in scary costumes creating a night of the living dead. Although, as I understand it, the living dead prefer brains over candy, but I think that’s just because they’ve never had a Reese’s Cup. However, in our little troop we never got the scary memo. We took it as an opportunity to be something we weren’t: cool.
That’s why we were cowboys, superheroes, and army guys. (Yup, that’s what we called them. See the above allusion about not being cool). One year I was a WWI flying ace. I was 10 and had read books about Eddie Rickenbacker and his contemporaries. I wanted to be just like them. Never mind that I got motion-sick just watching the other kids ride the Merry-Go-Round.
Unlike my parents’ generation, mine and subsequent generations still like to dress up past childhood. Just look at all the adult costumes that are sold these days during October. I never recall my parents even talking about dressing up for Halloween. That wasn’t something adults did. But we do now. Just look at all the Cos-Play conventions and the like where folks dress as all sorts of things. A friend of mine goes to Furry conventions. That’s where people dress as all sorts of animals….kind of like a gathering of mascots. The costumes are that elaborate which in this case is another word for expensive. I think it’s a great way to stay young. All too often we park our imagination on a shelf because we think that’s what you do when you “grow up”. Me, I like to take mine out and play with it.
That’s why at our company Halloween costume contest I revisited my youth and donned a costume. While much has changed since I dressed up as a kid—we now spend $9.1 billion on Halloween—my reasons for costume selection hasn’t. I still want to be something I’m not: cool. So, I put on a white tee shirt, blue jeans with the cuffs rolled up, boots, a leather jacket, and some shades. It was sort of the Fonz without the motorcycle. I’m not allowed to have one as I would likely hurt myself.
Just like when I was a kid, it was freeing. Fonzie was comfortable in his skin without much concern as to what people thought about him. That casual comfort of self is often hard to maintain. Too often we see our lives through the lens of comparison. Are we as rich…as good looking…as successful as our neighbor? The answer should be “who cares”? I’m likely not alone when I say that answer isn’t always my response. So, as another Halloween drifts by, I’ll try to hang on to that Fonzie confidence. I’ll try to enjoy being who I am without worrying about what I’m not or don’t have. I’ll probably ditch the white tee shirt, but I’m keeping the shades. They’re cool.
