I would sit in the same spot, every Halloween. Same spot, year after year. It was this tiny hallway between the front door leading out into the real world and another door leading into my house. It was always dark there because I couldn’t turn on the porch lights. Dark except for a tiny spore of light cast through the peephole of the front door. I’d sit there and I’d wait until it got dark out and then it would happen. A parade of monsters. A fleet of action superheroes. Sometimes few fairy princesses; those were my favorite. The frigid Connecticut air would chill my face as I pressed it to the peephole of my front door. With just one eye, I could imagine that I was in one of those costumes. I would picture all the candy I would get and I started to create all the faux conversations I would have the next morning with my classmates about the evening before when I was clad in costume, candy clutched in hand, breathing in the last few breaths of October.
I hated all of it. I especially hated the sign. “NO CANDY. DON’T KNOCK.” The sign made us look so uninviting, not to mention the lights were off; how much worse could it get? It was one thing to not celebrate Halloween because of our religion but, we didn’t have to be rude about it.
To answer your question, yes, I was raised throughout my childhood and much of my teenage years as a Jehovah’s Witness. That meant no birthdays, no Christmas and definitely no Halloween for that matter.
As a child, I felt as though I was always missing out. Birthday party invites soon became a burden as I had to carefully calculate an angle to work on my parents in order to convince them to let me attend. It would always result in a no. Halloween was more exhausting than anything because I felt like a prisoner in my own home seeing as though I would end up staring out of my window of choice. After a while, I knew better than to ask. Christmas didn’t exist in my home and to ensure that, not a single Christmas tree crossed through one threshold. My birthday was just another day and I began to loathe the holiday season following October. I was always a Valentine’s Day card short and happy birthday without.
The conversations between my classmates were always extremely one-sided. I’d sit with a superficial, tight-lipped smile painted across my face as the conversations teemed around me in the few days preceding Halloween. Almost like clockwork, the annual class Halloween party would begin and the jealousy would wash over me almost instantaneously. I could feel my cheeks get hot and the tears would sting my eyes. My nose would burn with the feeling of resentment.  I didn’t care to ask what costume was in consideration for them. I didn’t care to know what festivities would commence and I certainly didn’t want to inquire whether they were coming to my house to stop by and trick-or-treat.
I still really hate Halloween.