I almost plunged into a state of existential despair
while writing this, our final 30 Days of Halloween post, because I realized
that I can’t remember what my last non-slutty Halloween costume was. I remember
my favorite costume as a child, which was Mary, Queen of Scots, in third grade.
I remember my college and post-grad costumes, which include slutty Alice in
Wonderland, slutty Wonder Woman, slutty Robin, and slutty Princess Peach. Those
middle years, though—a blur.
I know that I was a witch sometimes, and another time
Stevie Nicks (I mean, she is basically an extension of the witch idea), and I
think I tried to be Buffy Summers one year. But what was my final costume, my
last idea before I acquiesced to the “You’re a girl, you have to spend $60 on a
slutty costume that consists of three straps of fabric” ideology about
Halloween? How is it possible that I can’t remember?
Maybe I was too fixated on the candy, making sure my
father didn’t steal my Kit Kats and my lollipops, because those were his
favorite, and he had no qualms about asserting that fact. Or maybe I was always
so busy planning my costume for the next year that I didn’t fixate on what I
was actually wearing at the time. Or maybe Halloween wasn’t really about the
candy, or even the costumes, or even the trick-or-treating routine—at least,
not any of those things as a single, exclusionary element. Maybe it was about
the experience as a whole—the creativity required, the reinvention offered, the
return to normalcy guaranteed—and how fleeting it was. You can wait desperately
for something all year, plan for it and buy your costume and your candy and do
all that, and barely 24 hours later, it’s over. Your normal life and your
normal life clothes and your normal life eating habits return. But then you
start the whole thing all over again, thinking to yourself, “Next year, I’ll do
better. Next year will be better. Next year.”
I guess what I’m saying, in a roundabout way, is
Halloween is simultaneously thrilling and alluring, and yet also totally
comfortable and accepting. Some things change, but not really; more things stay
the same. You’re probably buying the same candy year after year. You’re
probably staying within the same theme for your costumes; I transitioned from
being Goth-obsessed to comics-obsessed, which mirrored my own personality
transition over the years. And maybe, just maybe, you’re holding out for the
Great Pumpkin to come. Next year, he’ll show next year. Next year.
Which is why, of course, It’s the Great Pumpkin,
Charlie Brown, should be the only thing you watch today that’s
Halloween-themed. Sure, the holiday has over the years been usurped by subpar horror
movies like Saw and Paranormal Activity, and skanky costumes that somehow
make even inanimate objects like M&M candies and R2-D2 sexually
stimulating. But in the Peanuts world, in the perfect little place Charles M.
Schulz created for Charlie Brown and Snoopy and Sally and Lucy and Woodstock
and Peppermint Patty and Linus—wonderful, trusting Linus—Halloween is about
sincerity and faith, about friendship and sentimentality, about a solid refusal
to see logic.
Honestly, isn’t Halloween a terribly unreasonable
thing? Wasting all that money and all that time for just one night? But Linus,
perfect Linus, puts it best in his letter to the Great Pumpkin: “Everyone tells
me you are a fake, but I believe in you. P.S.: If you really are a fake, don’t
tell me. I don’t want to know.”
Sometimes, you just have to go with a feeling. And if you can’t do that on Halloween, well when can you, goddammit?
Sometimes, you just have to go with a feeling. And if you can’t do that on Halloween, well when can you, goddammit?
Until next year, everyone. We’ll do better next
year. Next year.
