Those who know me best are well aware that I begin planning my Halloween costume months in advance. I do tend to change my mind about thirty times or so, over the course of those months (only because there are too many wonderful costume possibilities in the world), and people are probably sick of me pulling up my designated “Costumes” board on Pinterest and asking which is their favorite. But I personally feel that’s a small price to pay for an excellent Oct. 31.
In my mind, Halloween is too great not to love it. Enough candy to satisfy the dreams of a small child (or a young adult with a sweet tooth), the bustling night as crowds of people come to mingle in the streets and the transformation of the mundane into the delightfully spooky. But above all else, there is the chance to transform yourself… or simply exaggerate what’s already there.
In the early days of All Hallows’ Eve, costumes were a method of disguise, a way to hide oneself from all of the spirits and creepy-crawlies that roamed the Earth, one night a year, and to make them believe you were one of them. I can’t say my motivation for dressing up is fueled by the fear of encountering such ghouls, but this idea of a disguise still comes into play in a special way. Halloween gives me a chance to present myself as someone else or something else, to disguise myself in a way in which nobody would recognize me. However, I’ve begun to realize that perhaps these disguises aren’t portrayals of our antitheses. Perhaps we are magnifying things inside of us to the extent that we overpower our normal appearance, bringing out the deeper qualities of our personalities that we may be hesitant to express.
Now, I know that the meaning behind a lot of costumes isn’t that deep. The year I was told that I was too old for trick-or-treating, I was understandably salty about the end of a beautiful era and moped around until just before the big night. It suddenly hit me that maybe moping around in a costume would be better than going cold turkey and giving up on Halloween completely, so I rushed to throw something together and decided that a flannel shirt with a screwed-up hairdo and red lipstick smudged over my face would do well enough for a last-minute zombie costume.
But for my more thought-out costumes, the ones I set my mind on weeks in advance and begin preparing for with the utmost dedication (the kind of dedication that I should probably be putting into other facets of my life), I can’t help but wonder if I’m trying to express something that I feel inklings of deep down in my soul more vibrantly. For three years in a row, during my childhood, I was a pirate for Halloween, which is perhaps the last type of character most people would associate with me. But maybe I wanted to have that more rebellious streak and careless aura that the pirates we see in movies tend to have, ravaging the seas, unafraid to do whatever they darn well pleased. For my first Halloween on Franklin St., I was Maleficent, trying to let my desires for a darker, more dominant and queenly nature shine through. And just last year, I was a Na’vi from Avatar, wanting to project the same kind of passion and adventure that filled the 2009 James Cameron film.
Therefore, instead of magnifying my more obvious traits, I choose to paint myself in a light I rarely ever appear in, if at all. Even if a character or creature I dress up as is terribly unlike me, I still have that desire to be like them in some way, which I guess makes them a part of me in a subtler or more hidden way. There are definitely costumes I’d like to wear that highlight the qualities I’m more open about (I still haven’t dressed up as Belle, despite some strong mental and physical similarities), but I seem to lean toward costumes that act as alter egos. I may never be an actual pirate or dark queen of fairies, but I have an opportunity, once a year, to let those desires run wild. And, of course, I have the opportunity to binge eat lots and lots of candy. Because, no matter what alter ego I’m embodying, I can’t say there’s anything quite as wonderful as a pumpkin-shaped Reese’s cup.