.being halloween.

for me, it has always been halloween. from the first time i got to adorn a costume as a child and transform into someone else to this year where i still find the same joy decades later. since i came into the life of my eye guy, i have won him over to the halloween side. i usually start brainstorming our costumes the day after our previous year's halloween comes to a close.

this past weekend was no exception as we threw our annual halloween soiree and woke up the next morning reliving all the costumes and fun from the night before. while doing so, i of course started on my rant of the possibilities for next year and now already know what i want us to be. is it halloween again yet?!

it is a rarity for me not to wonder why...so when i start to ask myself why i love halloween so much, i come up with a few reasons. first of all, i treasure the chances i get to be creative and halloween most definitely allows for the creative sparks to ignite. but there has to be more to it than that. imagination and escapism both attract me to them. donning that costume, we are free to be a new character, wipe away our every day selves and imagine what it must be like as that entity.

halloween is a delightful ride for me and one that i look forward to trying out again every year. however, there's some substance to the holiday that is worth exploring more than just at the end of october. character transformation.

how about an 'i've got this under control' mask the next time you feel overwhelmed at work? or, 'i will not blow a gasket' mask the next time your loved one grates your patience? maybe even don the 'i will do something a little more daring than i usually do' after a really ordinary string of weeks? the hardest character to play well is the one furthest from how we really feel. yet, sometimes demanding of ourselves to cloak our traditional reactions may lead us to find that we like the feel of the costume better after all.

happy haunting!